SAVING PANGOLINS
Pangolins may be the most endangered species you’ve never heard of. Luckily their plight is becoming more well known. These charmingly odd, termite-eating mammals are covered from head to tail with large, overlapping scales. They vaguely resemble a pinecone with legs. But one of their most interesting attributes — their ability to roll up into near-perfect balls when threatened — makes them easy pickings for poachers.
Unfortunately pangolins’ scales are in high demand in traditional Chinese medicine, and their meat is considered a delicacy in some parts of Asia. An estimated 1 million pangolins were removed from the wild in recent years to meet this demand, making them the world’s most heavily trafficked mammals.
And before the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species banned the pangolin trade globally, the United States was one of the biggest pangolin consumers, using them for leather.
There are eight species of pangolins: four in Asia and four in Africa. Some Asian pangolin species have astonishingly already declined by more than 50 percent in recent years, and poachers have turned to Africa’s pangolins to meet the persistent demand. Pangolins may be poached to extinction in the coming decades without a crackdown on the trade.
OUR CAMPAIGN
The Center and our partners are working hard to combat rampant pangolin poaching and trade. We’re determined to save these amazing and unusual creatures.
In 2015 we petitioned to protect seven species of pangolins under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. (The eighth species is already protected.)
In response, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conceded that protections might be warranted, inviting information from scientists and the public about pangolins’ status and threats to determine whether an endangered listing would be appropriate.
But five years later the agency still hadn't moved forward on protection — though all the while pangolins were moving closer to extinction. So in 2020 the Center and allies sued the Service to compel it to propose U.S. safeguards — which it finally did in 2025, following a legal agreement with us.
We’re also working to strengthen trade prohibitions on the international level. In 2020 we filed a legal petition urging the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to formally certify China for illegally trading in critically imperiled pangolins. And Interior did just that in 2023, finding that China was “diminishing the effectiveness” of international agreements governing pangolin trade. After that, the U.S. government began negotiating to press China to close its domestic markets and address its stockpiles of scales.
As we fight for pangolins on both those legal fronts, we’re raising awareness to help save these largely unknown but gravely imperiled animals.
And check our our press releases to learn details about the Center's actions for pangolins.
+ NATURAL HISTORY
Temminck's ground pangolin } Smutsia temminckii
Chinese pangolin } Manis pentadactyla
Sunda pangolin } Manis javanica
Indian pangolin } Manis crassicaudata
Philippine pangolin } Manis culionensis
Long-tailed or black-bellied pangolin } Phataginus tetradactyla
Tree or white-bellied pangolin } Phataginus tricuspis
Giant pangolin } Smutsia gigantea
FAMILIES: Manidae
DESCRIPTION: Pangolins are mammals but are uniquely covered from head to tail with large, geometric scales made of keratin. Pangolins range in weight from just 4 pounds to a record 70 pounds. Pangolins are primarily nocturnal, and when frightened, they curl into a tight ball, exposing the sharp edges of their scales to any would-be predators — a defense effective even against large cats like lions.
HABITAT: Pangolins live in a wide variety of habitats and can dwell on the ground or in the forest canopy.
RANGE: Pangolins were once distributed widely across much of China, southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, as well as sub-Saharan Africa. Now, due to extensive poaching, pangolins are rare in much of China and southeast Asia and increasingly rare in Africa.
BREEDING: These creatures are solitary animals that meet only to mate. They’re slow maturing, reaching sexual maturity in two years, and they typically produce only one young at a time. Infant pangolins can be seen riding on the base of their mother's tail.
LIFECYCLE: The lifespan of pangolins is unknown.
FEEDING: Pangolins prey on ants and termites, using their strong foreclaws to break apart insect nests and mounds. They then lap up their prey with their long, sticky tongues, which can be as long as their whole bodies.
THREATS: Pangolins are threatened by poaching to satisfy human demand for their scales, which are believed to congeal blood and promote lactation in Asian medicine, and their meat, which is considered a delicacy in Asia. It’s estimated that 1 million pangolins have been taken from the wild to satisfy this trade in recent years. Pangolins also suffer from habitat destruction.
POPULATION TREND: Due to the species’ elusive and nocturnal behavior, few pangolin population estimates exist, but the best available science indicates that all eight species are in serious decline. In 2019 assessment, the International Union for Conservation of Nature assessed the Chinese, Sunda, and Philippine pangolins as critically endangered; the Indian, tree, and giant pangolins as endangered, and the Temminck’s and long-tailed pangolins as vulnerable due to past and predicted declines.
