Pangolin and the Bushmeat Trade: Why Meat, Not Scales, Drives African Hunting

The global narrative around pangolin poaching centres on international trafficking networks shipping scales from Africa to Asia for use in traditional medicine. That narrative is not wrong, but it is dangerously incomplete. A growing body of research reveals that the single largest driver of pangolin hunting in African forests is not the scales trade at all. It is the bushmeat trade—local consumption of pangolin meat as food, driven by taste preference, cultural tradition, and protein need.

Understanding this distinction is critical because the conservation strategies designed to combat international trafficking—port seizures, customs enforcement, diplomatic pressure on consumer countries—do not address the threat that kills the most pangolins. If conservationists continue to focus overwhelmingly on scales while ignoring meat, they risk winning the wrong battle.

The Numbers That Changed the Narrative

In 2025, an international research team led by the University of Cambridge, with partners from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Pangolin Protection Network, and the universities of Oxford, Exeter, Kent, and Washington, published a landmark study of pangolin hunting in Nigeria’s Cross River Forest. The team collected data from over 800 hunters and traders across 33 locations between 2020 and 2023, and the findings upended long-held assumptions about why pangolins are hunted in African forests.

The researchers estimated that approximately 21,000 pangolins—primarily white-bellied and black-bellied pangolins—were killed annually in the study area alone. Almost all (97%) were captured opportunistically during general hunting trips rather than targeted specifically for their scales. Pangolin meat ranked as the most palatable among 96 wild meats assessed in the region, which helps explain why hunters prioritise consumption over sale.

These figures challenge the assumption that intercepting international trafficking networks will protect African pangolin populations. If the overwhelming majority of hunting is driven by local meat consumption, then port seizures and customs enforcement, however necessary, are addressing a secondary threat.

The Scale of Bushmeat Hunting

The Cross River study captures a snapshot of one region, but global estimates confirm that bushmeat hunting is the dominant threat. Researchers estimate that between 400,000 and 2.7 million pangolins are hunted for bushmeat markets worldwide each year, representing a 150 percent increase since the 1970s. Globally, one pangolin is poached approximately every three minutes.

In West and Central Africa, bushmeat markets operate openly in many urban centres despite legal protections. Pangolins appear alongside duikers, porcupines, monkeys, and cane rats in market stalls from Lagos to Douala. In parts of Nigeria, pangolin meat is specifically procured for pregnant women in the belief that it helps produce strong babies. The cultural embeddedness of pangolin consumption makes it resistant to simple prohibition.

The economics reinforce this pattern. At local markets in southeastern Nigeria, a kilogram of pangolin meat commands substantially more than a kilogram of scales. When a hunter captures a pangolin, the rational economic decision is to sell or eat the meat and discard the scales—exactly what the data shows most hunters do. Only a fraction of scales enter the international trafficking pipeline.

Cameroon: A Demand Reduction Success Story

If the bushmeat problem seems intractable, Cameroon offers cautious grounds for optimism. WildAid, working with local research firm Cible Études & Conseil, conducted surveys of 500 respondents across five Cameroonian cities—Yaoundé, Douala, Bertoua, Ebolowa, and Mbalmayo—in 2022 and 2024 to measure the impact of demand reduction campaigns targeting pangolin consumption.

The results were significant. Monthly or more frequent pangolin consumption dropped to 10.3 percent in 2024, down from 14.1 percent in 2022—a 26.7 percent decline. Among respondents who had seen the campaign, 29 percent stopped eating pangolin meat entirely and a further 5.4 percent reduced their consumption. Awareness of pangolin protection laws more than doubled, rising from 28.9 percent to 61.6 percent. Support for pangolin hunting bans increased from 56.4 percent to 67 percent.

Cultural pride in pangolins reached 95.2 percent in 2024, up from 92.7 percent in 2022. When people understand pangolins as a source of national heritage rather than a source of protein, behavioural change follows.

The Cameroon data demonstrates that well-designed demand reduction campaigns can shift consumption patterns even for deeply embedded cultural practices. In March 2024, a coordinated market raid involving 71 government agents rescued six live white-bellied pangolins from bushmeat stalls, showing that enforcement can complement awareness campaigns when adequately resourced.

Asia: From Subsistence to Status Symbol

The bushmeat dynamic operates differently in Southeast Asia. While African hunting is overwhelmingly subsistence-driven, pangolin consumption in Vietnam and China functions as a luxury status marker. Vietnamese restaurants charge up to $150 per pound of pangolin meat. In some establishments, the animal is killed at the table in front of diners to demonstrate freshness and authenticity. Research in Ho Chi Minh City found pangolin to be the most expensive wild meat on restaurant menus.

This luxury market creates a demand that connects to African supply chains. Between 2016 and 2024, there were 2,222 seizures across 49 countries involving an estimated 553,042 pangolins. Nigeria was the country of origin with the highest number of seizures, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Malaysia, and Ghana. While most African hunting produces meat consumed locally, a fraction of the scales generated as a byproduct enters international trafficking routes to feed Asian demand.

The conservation implication is that Africa’s pangolin crisis has two distinct but interconnected drivers: a high-volume local bushmeat trade that kills hundreds of thousands of pangolins annually, and a lower-volume but higher-value international scales trade that generates the headlines and enforcement attention.

Conservation Beyond Anti-Trafficking

The research consensus is increasingly clear: anti-trafficking measures alone will not save African pangolins. Effective conservation requires strategies that address the root drivers of bushmeat hunting. Researchers and conservation organisations have identified several integrated approaches:

• Alternative protein promotion: Fresh fish, locally reared poultry, and free-range livestock can meet consumer expectations for healthy, minimally processed food. Campaigns must dispel negative perceptions of domestic meat while offering affordable, accessible alternatives.
• Demand reduction campaigns: WildAid’s Cameroon results show that awareness campaigns work. Scaling these across West and Central Africa, adapted to local cultural contexts, could significantly reduce consumption.
• Alternative livelihood programmes: The African Wildlife Foundation supports communities in establishing sustainable enterprises as alternatives to bushmeat hunting, including value-added products from non-timber forest resources such as bush mango and njansang oils.
• Community-based wildlife management: Giving local communities a genuine economic stake in pangolin survival—through ecotourism revenue, conservation employment, or wildlife management fees—aligns economic incentives with conservation outcomes.
• Consistent law enforcement: Legal frameworks exist in most pangolin range states but enforcement is patchy. The Cameroon market raid demonstrates what coordinated enforcement looks like, but such operations need to become routine rather than exceptional.

What Comes Next

The West Africa Regional Pangolin Conservation Action Plan 2026–2056, launched at CITES CoP20, explicitly recognises the bushmeat threat alongside the scales trade for the first time in a major regional conservation framework. The 30-year timeframe acknowledges that shifting deeply embedded food culture requires sustained engagement, not short-term campaigns.

The fundamental challenge is conceptual as much as practical. For decades, the conservation community framed pangolin decline primarily as a trafficking problem, directing resources toward border interdiction and diplomatic pressure on consumer countries. The Cross River study and the growing body of West African research reveal that the majority of pangolins never enter a trafficking network. They are hunted by local people, for local consumption, in forests across the continent. Protecting pangolins requires meeting those communities where they are—with better protein alternatives, sustainable livelihoods, and a conservation message that resonates with cultural values rather than opposing them.