Most live on the ground, but some, like the black-bellied pangolin, also climb trees. Pangolins are solitary and active mostly at night. In two record-breaking seizures in the space of a week in April 2019, Singapore seized a 14.2-ton shipment and and a 14-ton shipment of pangolin scales-from an estimated 72,000 pangolins-coming from Nigeria. But now that their numbers have been depleted, smugglers are increasingly turning to African pangolins. The scales typically dried and ground up into powder, which may be turned into a pill.įor many years, the Asian species were the primary target of poachers and traffickers. Pangolin scales, like rhino horn, have no proven medicinal value, yet they are used in traditional Chinese medicine to help with ailments ranging from lactation difficulties to arthritis. Pangolin scales are made of keratin, the same material that makes up fingernails, hair, and horn. In 2016, the 186 countries party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the treaty that regulates the international wildlife trade, voted to ban the commercial trade in pangolins. All species face declining populations because of illegal trade. The four African species-the ground pangolin, giant pangolin, white-bellied, and black-bellied-are listed as vulnerable. Four are found is Asia- Chinese, Sunda, Indian, and Philippine pangolins-and they're listed by the IUCN as critically endangered. Tens of thousands of pangolins are poached every year, killed for their scales for use in traditional Chinese medicine and for their meat, a delicacy among some ultra-wealthy in China and Vietnam. The shy, harmless pangolin is becoming increasingly well known for one reason: It’s believed to be the world’s most trafficked non-human mammal.

Pangolin by Laura Bryant