Proposals to farm pangolins for their scales to supply traditional medicine demand represent a conservation and welfare approach that most experts argue would harm rather than help pangolin populations.
Pangolin farming would cause significant individual animal welfare harm. Pangolins are highly specialized insectivores that fail to thrive in captivity, typically dying within weeks to months due to stress, dietary deficiency, and inability to express natural behaviors. Their scales are keratin with no pharmacological properties beyond those of synthetic keratin. Opening a legal trade would provide cover for laundering wild-caught animals into the legal supply chain, as has happened with other species. Conservation organizations universally oppose pangolin farming as both welfare-negative and conservation-harmful. The solution to pangolin trade involves demand reduction campaigns, stronger enforcement, and promotion of synthetic alternatives. Traditional medicine practitioners in China and Vietnam are increasingly open to synthetic alternatives when equivalence is demonstrated.