Why Are Pangolins the Most Trafficked Mammal?

Pangolins aren’t especially well known outside conservation circles, which makes it all the more striking that they hold a grim distinction: more pangolins are trafficked illegally each year than any other mammal on the planet, elephants and rhinos included.

An Animal Built Almost Entirely of Armor

Pangolins, sometimes called scaly anteaters, are unique among mammals for being covered head to tail in overlapping scales made of keratin — the same protein found in human hair and fingernails, according to Animals Around The Globe. Those scales, which give the animal an armored, almost reptilian appearance, are exactly what has made it such a target.

Demand That Has Little Scientific Basis

The primary driver of pangolin poaching is demand for their scales in traditional medicine, particularly across parts of Asia, where the scales are used in remedies for conditions ranging from asthma to arthritis, according to WWF. Pangolin meat is also considered a delicacy in some countries, adding a second layer of demand on top of the medicinal trade, according to IFAW.

The uncomfortable reality is that none of this demand is backed by solid evidence. Medical science doesn’t recognize any proven medicinal benefit in pangolin scales, and the meat isn’t a nutritional necessity anywhere it’s consumed — it’s treated as a luxury item, according to IFAW. Pangolin scales are made of keratin, chemically similar to human fingernails, which has no established therapeutic properties beyond what any comparable protein would offer.

From Asia to Africa

For years, the trade was concentrated on Asian pangolin species. But as those populations collapsed under hunting pressure, traffickers increasingly shifted their focus to Africa’s four pangolin species to meet the same demand, according to WildAid. In the past five years alone, authorities have seized more than 160,000 pounds of pangolin scales worldwide — a figure that represents an estimated 800,000 individual animals, according to WildAid.

Reflecting how severe the crisis has become, all eight recognized pangolin species are now classified as threatened with extinction, and three — the Chinese, Philippine, and Sunda pangolins — are considered critically endangered, according to IFAW.

Why Enforcement Is So Difficult

Pangolins are notoriously hard to protect for a few practical reasons. They’re nocturnal, reclusive, and roll into a tight ball when threatened — a defense that works well against natural predators but does nothing against a human poacher, according to WildAid. They’re also extremely difficult to breed or raise in captivity, which means captive breeding programs can’t easily reduce pressure on wild populations the way they sometimes can for other endangered species.

International trade in wild pangolins has technically been banned since 2016, when all eight species were added to Appendix I of CITES, the strictest protection category available under that treaty, according to Wikipedia. Some countries have gone further: China, for example, has raised domestic protections for its native pangolin species and removed pangolin scales from its official list of approved traditional medicine ingredients, according to WWF. Even so, illegal trafficking has continued, in part because a market this large and this profitable is difficult to shut down through legislation alone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are pangolins actually endangered, or just heavily hunted? Both. All eight pangolin species are currently classified as threatened with extinction, with three considered critically endangered, largely as a direct result of trafficking pressure.

Is there any scientific basis for using pangolin scales in medicine? No. The scales are made of keratin, the same material as human fingernails and hair, and no scientific evidence supports the medicinal claims associated with their use.

Pangolins remain one of conservation’s most urgent, least publicized crises — an animal whose only real weapon against poachers is a defense mechanism that was never built to withstand a human hunter.