Pangolin Trade

The illegal poaching, trafficking and sale of pangolins, their parts, or pangolin-derived products on the black market. Pangolins are believed to be the world's most trafficked mammal, accounting for as much as twenty percent of all illegal wildlife trade, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has estimated that more than a million pangolins were poached in the decade before 2014. The animals are trafficked mainly for their scales, prized in traditional Chinese medicine for treating a variety of health conditions, and as a luxury food in Vietnam and China; in Africa they are also sold as bushmeat and used for ritual, spiritual and traditional medicine purposes, and are sometimes trafficked for clothing and fashion. All eight pangolin species were added to CITES Appendix One in 2016, the strictest protection category reserved for species threatened with extinction, and all eight are listed on the IUCN Red List with designations ranging from Vulnerable to Critically Endangered and rapidly decreasing populations. Though well defended against natural predators by their protective keratin scales, pangolins are easily caught by poachers, who simply pick up the animals when they roll into a defensive ball. The trade is centuries old, with an early documented example recorded in 1820.