Dynamics of pangolin exploitation in Southeast Nigeria

This dataset examines pangolin exploitation dynamics in Southeast Nigeria from 2010 to 2023 gathered via questionnare distributed to 809 hunters and vendors. It was used in the study "Pangolin hunting in Southeast Nigeria is driven more by local meat consumption than international demand for scales," which is currently under review in Nature Ecology & Evolution. 

We structured the questionnaire into five inter-related sections: a) pangolin capture rate, b) pangolin capture methods, c) hunting context, d) intentions when catching pangolins, e) uses of pangolin derivatives (meat and scale), f) prices of pangolin derivatives—the questionnaire for vendors contained only sections e and f. To estimate pangolin capture rates, we asked about the average number of pangolins which hunters had killed in the wet (April-October) and dry seasons (November-March) over the past three years. Sections b-e involved asking respondents to opt for different answers in a proportional fashion, following the weighted ranking method. In this process, we provided 10 pebbles and asked the participants to distribute the pebbles among the options, with the number of pebbles allocated to each option indicating its contribution to their answer (see column starting with 'prop' in the datasets attached). 

number.csv contains information on the number caught, methods.csv on the method of pangolin capture, motive.csv on context in which capture occured, reason.csv on intentions, uses.csv on how pangolin meat and scales are used, and price.csv on the per-animal price of pangolin meat and scales and the meat of blue duiker, red river hog, and African brush-tailed porcupine (on a per-animal basis). The 'id' columns in the files represent unique respondents, whose identity (including locations) have been withheld in line with our ethics protocol.