Pangolins are the most trafficked wild mammals on this planet
Originally published on Global Voices
An Indian Pangolin found in the Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) in Tamil Nadu. Image via Wikipedia by A. J. T. Johnsingh. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Every year, between 120 and 240 pangolins on average are seized from trafficking networks across India — and this is just from the trade that gets reported. According to a 2022 factsheet published by the TRAFFIC, an NGO tracking global wildlife trade, nearly 6,000 pangolins were poached from India alone between 2009 and 2017. Between 2019 and 2022, India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence reportedly seized close to 337 kilograms of pangolin scales.
Globally, there are eight species of pangolins, spread across tropical, subtropical, and savannah regions of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. India hosts the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) and the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla).
India’s pangolins are, however, at a critical juncture. Understanding what India must do next also requires understanding how we got here.
A history of trade
The earliest record of the use of pangolin scales as traditional medicine dates to the Ming Dynasty and was meticulously documented by Li Shizhen, a naturalist known for the Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica). There is yet to be any scientific backing to this claim.
Pangolins today are the most trafficked wild mammals on this planet. Alive pangolins are picked up from the wild to be brutally skinned, and their scales are roasted and ground to “treat” carbuncles, skin infections, lactation deficiency, and even nervousness. The irony is that this trade persists despite modern (and cheaper) medicines that work better against the same ailments that pangolins were killed for by the Ming people. Pangolin scales are composed of keratin, the same protein as human fingernails, and small amounts of moisture (water) and lipids (fats) — none of which have any medicinal value.
Still, several sources suggest that one pangolin is taken from the wild, dead or alive, by traffickers every five minutes. A December 2025 CITES Report identifies 2,222 seizures of specimens (across all eight pangolin species) globally, equivalent to 553,042 pangolins, poached from the wild. This data was just for the period between 2016 and 2024. That’s the scale of the ignorance — or should we say, the ego — in our ability to procure a pangolin.
A misconception that spans continents
Although there’s no formal evidence, several anthropological and ethnographic records suggest the idea of pangolin scales as a medical cure traveled from China to India and Africa. In any case, pangolins in India and Africa have been and still are sought after for their alleged medical properties.
“In remote tribal homes in Central India, you might still find a pangolin scale hanging by the front door. There are reports of people burying pangolin scales in the earth before constructing a new house. They believe that the scales bring good fortune. Scales are also turned into amulets by the remote indigenous communities of Central India to ward off evil spirits,” explains Monesh Singh Tomar, a member of the IUCN Pangolin Specialist Group and a project lead for the Wildlife Trust of India in an interview with Global Voices.
Pangolins commodified: Shifting trends in India
In India, the two species of pangolins — the Indian pangolin and the Chinese pangolin have been hunted across their range. However, it was only by the 1980s that reports started indicating pangolin scales being exported to East and Southeast Asia. The real surge was in the 21st century, when India became a major supplier to countries like Vietnam and China through organized trafficking syndicates. By then, India had already enacted its Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, giving both species of pangolins a Schedule I status — a protection similar to the national animal, the Bengal tiger.
According to an IUCN report, at least 74 countries are currently implicated in the global illegal pangolin trade, serviced by 178 unique international trade routes that keep on shifting to evade enforcement action.
“Social media too has played a huge role, especially after the Covid-19 years. Cybercrime has been on the rise and conversations between sellers and buyers are encrypted. Intercepting these messages requires more than traditional enforcement tools. Basically, much of the illegal marketplace has shifted online and so have our tools for enforcement action,” adds Tomar.
Pangolin scale seized in Chitrakoot, Bastar. Photograph by the author.
Countering the illegal trade of pangolins in India
India boasts one of the strictest laws around wildlife protection, but enforcement action has been limited, as has awareness of the species. Illegal trade, too, has evolved, with social media platforms acting as hidden marketplaces.
Conservation institutions like the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) have been working with enforcement agencies like the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), Forest Departments, border security agencies, and even the police to put a dent in the trade, acting on individual cases through covert and strategic operations. Between 2015 and 2026, more than 500 enforcement operations related to pangolins were conducted in India, and an estimated 2,000-3,000 pangolins (or equivalent in scales) were seized domestically. As recently as 26th April, a seizure in the Dantewada Forest Division of Central India, led by WTI, the Chhattisgarh State Flying Squad and the local forest department, helped recover two leopard skins and 20 kilograms of pangolin scales. The individuals apprehended were middlemen linking local hunters and traders who facilitate the onward trafficking of the products. Investigations also revealed their links to fake currency rackets, among other crimes.
Citizen science initiatives like the Cyber HAWK allow volunteers to track social media accounts, private groups and conversations to help report wildlife crime. Developed in collaboration with NTT Data, the mobile app is currently available to Indian users and has 264 users who have collectively reported 784 cases of cyber wildlife crime. This includes 15 cases of trade in pangolin parts, four of them international, which have been addressed through strategic collaborations. WTI has also been approaching platforms like YouTube and Meta to bring down posts that involve illegal trade in live wildlife and related products.
Apart from stricter surveillance and enforcement, experts say that officials must also work with local communities to increase education about illegal animal trade. Society needs to understand the ecological benefits of pangolins in our shared ecosystem.
In Manipur, an Indian state located in Northeastern India and along the international borders of Myanmar, targeted campaigning with leaders of Indigenous communities like Tangkhul Naga, Poumai Naga and Sangtam Naga have led to their apex bodies banning the hunting or sale of pangolins and hornbills across at least 300 villages.
“WTI had approached these indigenous communities through churches and events like the Pangolin Cup and the results have been quite encouraging,” explains Chingrisoror Rumthao, WTI’s field officer for the pangolin trafficking project in Manipur, supported by the WCT Pangolin Crisis Fund, in an interview with Global Voices. “This ban is especially important because the Indian state of Manipur is located at the international Indo-Myanmar border. The communities taking a resolution directly disrupt the international illegal markets that exist at the borders.
The responsibility is on all of us
For pangolins to survive, the bigger (and more influential) forces driving these crimes need to be rooted out. Wildlife crime rackets across the world are often also the same organizations linked to human trafficking, arms trafficking, or money laundering. WTI, in collaboration with enforcement agencies like the WCCB, border customs, forest department, and other enforcement agencies, has been training frontline staff in identifying illegal wildlife products and infiltrating the trade routes and networks.
Each economic class is part of the crime, while misconceptions and money, both human needs, are fueling the demise of a species that survived the challenges of evolution. It’s time that enforcement agencies, governments, conservation institutions and the public work together and take the war against traffickers, both on the ground and in cyberspace, to save wild species — and, in turn, us humans.