Happy Pangolin Day: the prize for the shy scaly creature as world’s most trafficked mammal

Wildlife conservationists are again raising the plight of pangolins, the shy, scaly anteaters found in parts of Africa and Asia, on World Pangolin Day on Saturday. Pangolins or pangolin products outstrip any other mammal when it comes to wildlife smuggling, with more than half a million pangolins seized in anti-trafficking operations between 2016 and 2024, according to a report last year by CITES, the global authority on the trading of endangered plant and animal species. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that over a million pangolins were taken from the wild over the last decade, including those that were never intercepted….