page_title: Pangolin trade
section_title: Conservation and enforcement
hierarchical_section_title: Pangolin trade / Conservation and enforcement
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir David Attenborough at the official opening of the Weston Library, Oxford, England, in March 2015. Ovenden awarded the Bodley Medal to Hawking and Attenborough as part of the ceremony. See "Oxford University's Weston Library reopens", BBC News Depicted person&#58; &#32;David Attenborough
context_page_description: The pangolin trade is the illegal poaching, trafficking, and sale of pangolins, parts of pangolins, or pangolin-derived products on the black market. Pangolins are believed to be the world's most trafficked mammal, accounting for as much as 20% of all illegal wildlife trade. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, more than a million pangolins were poached in the decade prior to 2014.
  The animals are trafficked mainly for their scales, which are believed to treat a variety of health conditions in traditional Chinese medicine, and as a luxury food in Vietnam and China. In Africa, pangolins are sold as a form of bushmeat, for ritual or spiritual purposes, and use in traditional African medicine. Many times the animal is trafficked just for clothing and fashion.
  The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which regulates the international wildlife trade, has placed restrictions on the pangolin market since 1975, and in 2016, it added all eight pangolin species to its Appendix I, reserved for the strictest prohibitions on animals threatened with extinction.
context_section_description: Governments and non-governmental organizations have undertaken a variety of conservation efforts, with varying activities and degrees of success in different parts of the world. The IUCN's Species Survival Commission formed a Pangolin Specialist Group in 2012, comprising 100 experts from 25 countries, hosted by the Zoological Society of London. It also coordinated an annual awareness day, World Pangolin Day, on February 15, starting in 2014.
  
  Public awareness and support for conservation efforts can be important to their success. According to Annette Olsson, technical advisor at Conservation International, one of the problems the pangolin faces is that, unlike more well-known endangered animals like elephants, rhinoceroses, pandas, or tigers, "It's not huge and not very charismatic. It's small and weird and just disappearing." Legal measures focus on curbing poaching and the supply side of the market, while media attention and public awareness can be crucial to the success to animal conservation efforts by affecting demand. According to CNN's John D. Sutter, "the pangolin needs international celebrity to survive, and the CITES vote is a critical step toward achieving that celebrity." In some part due to lack of attention, pangolin conservation has not been a significant recipient of funding from governments or NGOs.
  On 17 February 2017, a day before World Pangolin Day, officials in Cameroon burned 3 tonnes of confiscated pangolin scales, representing up to 10,000 animals. The Cameroonian government had confiscated more than 8 tonnes of pangolin scales since 2013. This conservation strategy is similar to the increasingly common destroying confiscated ivory to deter poaching and generate public outrage or action. As with ivory, there is an opportunity cost to destroying the material, trading awareness via public spectacle for the money which could be gained by reselling what was confiscated.
  In Vietnam, one of the countries in which the pangolin trade is most active, activists have access to only two centers able to take care of pangolins, and together they can only keep 50 animals in total. CNN characterized Vietnamese activists as having "vastly inadequate support."
  A significant challenge to conservationists is the difficulty pangolins have in captivity. The animals do not adapt well to alternative or artificial foods and suffer stress, depression and malnutrition, leading to significantly shortened lifespans. For these reasons they are rarely found in zoos or visible to the public while alive. For example, as of 2015, the only zoo in the United States to have a pangolin is the San Diego Zoo, and only one because the other died due to digestive problems. Part of the problem, which is also a major cause of the problem, is that without the ability to observe healthy pangolins in captivity, there is still a lot about pangolins humans have not yet been able to learn – variety in their diet, maximum lifespan, maximum size, mating habits, and many aspects of their behavior.
  In an episode of the BBC program Natural World, David Attenborough highlighted the Sunda pangolin as one of the 10 species he would like to save from extinction, recalling rescuing "one of the most endearing animals I have ever met" from being eaten while working on a film early in his career.
caption: David Attenborough has advocated for the protection of pangolins.
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