Pangolins are the most trafficked mammals in the world, but habitat destruction compounds trafficking pressure by reducing the forest ecosystems they depend on for food and shelter.
Pangolins in fragmented habitats must cover larger areas to find sufficient food, increasing exposure to snares, roads, and hunters. When forest patches become too small to support viable insect prey populations, pangolins face chronic nutritional stress that impairs immune function and reproduction. Trafficked pangolins suffer extreme welfare harms including stress, injury, dehydration, and high mortality rates during transport and captivity. Habitat protection combined with anti-poaching enforcement addresses both the chronic welfare costs of habitat inadequacy and the acute welfare catastrophe of trafficking.