An endangered pangolin has been rescued from a government building in Odisha’s Naupada district where wildlife traffickers had allegedly hidden the animal while searching for a buyer, a Chhattisgarh forest official said on Monday.Pangolins are illegally hunted for their meat and keratin scalesThree persons have also been arrested. They have been identified as Roshan Thakur, 31, of Pitapara village in Gariaband district of Chhattisgarh, and Odisha residents Balakrishna Hati, 30, and Sonu Hati, 40, both from Palama village in Nuapada district.Pangolins are illegally hunted for their meat and keratin scales—the animal’s distinctive armour-like covering—which are falsely believed to possess medicinal properties in traditional medicine markets.Varun Jain, deputy director of Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve, said the rescue operation was carried out by a joint team of the tiger reserve in Chhattisgarh and Khariar forest division in Odisha.“We received confidential information that a pangolin had been captured and was being kept for sale. Our teams immediately coordinated with the Khariar forest division and conducted the operation,” Jain said.Officials said the pangolin, weighing about 7kg, had been caught on August 9. The suspects were looking for a buyer and in the interim, were using a structure built for an irrigation project as a safe house to hide their catch.The rescued pangolin was placed under the care of a veterinary doctor in Khariar.The hunters who caught the pangolin are still on the run. A case has been registered under various provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.The operation was conducted as part of efforts to protect the wildlife corridor connecting the Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh with the Sonabeda Sanctuary in Odisha.