Bad news , guys : The pangolin we adopted is missing . You may recall a vote I held online recently -- asking readers to suggest new names for pangolin P26 , who was released into a national park in Vietnam in March . The names you suggested were lovely : Pemalu , which is Indonesian for `` shy '' ; Bao , which is Vietnamese for `` protection . '' And -- Sandshrew , a scale-covered Pokemon character that even I 'll admit does bear a striking resemblance to a real-life panoglin . Of course , since you 're the Internet , you voted up Sandshrew . So that 's P26 's new name . And now Sandshrew is missing . I 'm not drawing any correlation between the two . Obviously . Of course not ... Let me back up in case you have n't been following this story : Pangolins are thought to be the most trafficked mammals in the world . They 're traded illegally and by the ton for their scales , which are used in traditional medicine and for their meat , which is a delicacy in Vietnam and China . I recently spent some time investigating the pangolin trade in Southeast Asia as part of CNN 's Change the List project . One pangolin I met was named P26 -- and had been seized from the illegal trade and taken to the Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program in Vietnam . He recently was released into Cat Tien National Park . I thought it would be fun for CNN 's audience to adopt and rename the pangolin , and the researchers who care for him kindly agreed . Turns out , the researchers kind of like the name Sandshrew . `` I guess it is kinda cute ( ish ) , '' one wrote in an e-mail . `` Well , anything is better than P26 right ? ! '' And they think it might help with his rescue . In a Wednesday blog post , Louise Fletcher , from the conservation program , wrote that P26 's ( sorry , Sandshrew 's ) radio tracking device had partially fallen off his tail . This happens quite a lot with this type of pangolin , she told me . The transmitting devices are fairly clunky , and they 're screwed into a scale that 's made of fingernail material . Now , she is scouring the forest trying to find him . She 's set up `` camera traps '' that might snap a photo of the nocturnal animal if he 's roaming around at night , looking for ants . And she 's spending some time just wandering the park at night hoping to see him . No luck so far . `` Maybe if the voting by CNN readers is complete on deciding P26′s new name , I can see if whispering it as we walk through the forest on Thursday night will be successful in coaxing him into view ! '' she wrote . Maybe ! I hope so . I sent her an e-mail telling her the new name for P26 is Sandshrew . I 'm holding out hope that Fletcher will find him by whispering `` Saaaandshrewwwww '' into the forest of Vietnam . I kind of love imagining that scene , and wish her luck . If you want to follow her progress , and Sandshrew 's , check out her blog . And thanks to everyone who voted . One more favor to ask : Maybe the fact that there 's a real-life endangered creature named after a video game character means Nintendo and Pokemon will start supporting pangolin conservation ? Maybe someone can suggest that by starting a Change.org petition ? So far , more than 4,000 people have signed a reader 's petition asking for Disney to put a pangolin in a movie . Maybe there 's a similarly creative ask for Pokemon ? For more in this series , visit CNN.com/Change .
Pokemon readers vote on the name Sandshrew for a pangolin in China . Sandshrew the pangolin is missing ; researchers are searching for him . Sandshrew is the name of a Cat Tien National Park character . Pokemon asks readers to try to get the company involved in pangolin conservation .