Pangolins are the world's most trafficked mammals, with all eight species threatened by demand for their scales in traditional medicine and their meat as a luxury food in parts of Asia.
Trafficked pangolins suffer profoundly during capture and transit. They are packed into sacks or bags with other pangolins, deprived of food and water, and transported in darkness for days to weeks. The stress of capture, confinement, and handling causes severe physiological distress. Many die during transport from stress and dehydration. Those that survive to markets are often killed live or kept in extremely distressed conditions before slaughter. The failure of pangolins to survive in captivity means that every pangolin in the trade is wild-caught, and every individual in a restaurant kitchen or medicine shop represents an animal that experienced the full terror and suffering of the trafficking process.