CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammals, face relentless threats due to the unique scales that make them highly sought after.

On World Pangolin Day, conservationists are once again spotlighting the critical situation faced by these elusive, armor-clad creatures native to regions in Africa and Asia.

According to a recent report by CITES, the global body governing the trade of endangered species, more than half a million pangolins and their derivatives were confiscated in anti-smuggling operations from 2016 to 2024. This staggering figure surpasses that of any other mammal involved in wildlife trafficking.

The World Wildlife Fund estimates that over the past ten years, more than a million pangolins have been extracted from their natural habitats, a figure that includes those that evaded capture by authorities.

While pangolin meat is considered a delicacy in some regions, the lucrative illegal trade is primarily driven by their scales. Composed of keratin—the same protein found in human hair and nails—these scales are in high demand in China and other Asian countries, fueled by the unfounded belief that they possess medicinal properties.

The scales are in high demand in China and other parts of Asia due to the unproven belief that they cure a range of ailments when made into traditional medicine.

There are eight pangolin species, four in Africa and four in Asia. All of them face a high, very high or extremely high risk of extinction.

While they’re sometimes known as scaly anteaters, pangolins are not related in any way to anteaters or armadillos.

They are unique in that they are the only mammals covered completely in keratin scales, which overlap and have sharp edges. They are the perfect defense mechanism, allowing a pangolin to roll up into an armored ball that even lions struggle to get to grip with, leaving the nocturnal ant and termite eaters with few natural predators.

But they have no real defense against human hunters. And in conservation terms, they don’t resonate in the way that elephants, rhinos or tigers do despite their fascinating intricacies — like their sticky insect-nabbing tongues being almost as long as their bodies.

While some reports indicate a downward trend in pangolin trafficking since the COVID-19 pandemic, they are still being poached at an alarming rate across parts of Africa, according to conservationists.

Nigeria is one of the global hot spots. There, Dr. Mark Ofua, a wildlife veterinarian and the West Africa representative for the Wild Africa conservation group, has rescued pangolins for more than a decade, which started with him scouring bushmeat markets for animals he could buy and save.

He runs an animal rescue center and a pangolin orphanage in Lagos.

His mission is to raise awareness of pangolins in Nigeria through a wildlife show for kids and a tactic of convincing entertainers, musicians and other celebrities with millions of social media followers to be involved in conservation campaigns — or just be seen with a pangolin.

Nigeria is home to three of the four African pangolin species, but they are not well known among the country’s 240 million people.

Ofua’s drive for pangolin publicity stems from an encounter with a group of well-dressed young men while he was once transporting pangolins he had rescued in a cage. The men pointed at them and asked him what they were, Ofua said.

“Oh, those are baby dragons,” he joked. But it got him thinking.

“There is a dark side to that admission,” Ofua said. “If people do not even know what a pangolin looks like, how do you protect them?”