Pangolins are the world's most trafficked mammal — their welfare during capture, transport, and trade causes immense suffering.
Pangolin trafficking involves some of the most severe sustained animal suffering in the illegal wildlife trade. Animals are torn from their territories, packed into cramped containers without food or water appropriate to their specialized dietary needs, and transported over days and weeks in conditions that cause most individuals to die before reaching their destination. Those who survive are either sold alive into pet markets where they rapidly die, or slaughtered for scales and meat. This is not an abstract conservation statistic — it is hundreds of thousands of individual animals experiencing prolonged suffering and death annually. Anti-trafficking enforcement and demand reduction in traditional medicine markets are the most direct welfare interventions available.