Understanding the extraordinary welfare and conservation crisis facing pangolins — the world's most trafficked mammals — and what drives the illegal trade that threatens all eight species.
Pangolin trafficking causes profound welfare harm at multiple stages: capture from wild populations using wire snares that cause injury before death, live transport under crowded, stressful conditions often lasting days, and slaughter methods focused on scale harvest that may not prioritize rapid unconsciousness. Pangolins in captivity rarely survive more than a few months due to their specialized dietary requirements — their exclusive insectivore diet of ants and termites cannot be replicated in captive settings, meaning trafficking inevitably results in either immediate killing or death from captivity conditions. The combination of extreme trafficking pressure and slow reproduction makes pangolins one of the species most urgently in need of demand reduction interventions.