Pangolins are the world's most trafficked mammals, facing extinction due to demand for their scales and meat, with severe welfare implications for captured individuals.
Pangolins experience catastrophic welfare harms from trafficking: their natural defence of rolling into a ball makes them easy to collect and transport alive, but the stress of capture, confinement, and exposure to unfamiliar environments leads to rapid death from immune collapse. Those reaching markets are often still alive, experiencing extreme distress. There is no welfare-compatible use of pangolins in trade — every captured individual suffers severely.