On a freezing June night in 2023, Kelsey Prediger stands in the dark waiting for the pangolin to show itself. The researcher's radio antenna had started beeping louder and louder near a burrow. It must be hiding there. The dense Namibian bush spreads out around Prediger, the starry sky and the Milky Way shining above her head.

The researcher and her team hold out for about an hour, but as the tip of her nose begins to freeze, Prediger gives up. "It's too cold, the pangolin won't come out today," she explains. She swivels her headlamp back and forth, signalling her rangers to retreat to the 4x4. In the African winter, the group has a tiny window of opportunity to find the animals: During the day, they hide from the sun in their burrows. From the early hours of the evening, they flee the cold. Today, Prediger and her team arrived too late.

Experts believe that pangolins are one of the most commonly smuggled species in the world. From 2007 to 2018 alone, around half a million specimens were confiscated, according to a United Nations report, and the number of animals being trafficked has risen dramatically since 2014.

Illicit trafficking reached a temporary peak in 2019, before the number of seizures fell significantly in 2020 and 2021. However, the impact of the pandemic on this decline is not yet clear: the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) do not go beyond 2021.

The animals' horn scales are particularly sought after in Asia. Ground into powder, they are said to relieve ailments such as rheumatism and help mothers with breastfeeding problems. They are made of keratin - just like hair and fingernails. And its insides also make it a lucrative prey: in Africa, its meat is sometimes sold on local markets as 'bushmeat'. In Asia, some restaurants serve the meat as a delicacy, although the overall trend is in decline.

While the illegal trade has reached new heights in recent years, the pangolin's habitat continues to shrink. In southern Africa, for example, electric fences are increasingly becoming a deadly trap for them. The list of threats is long, says Prediger, but awareness is low. Many people have never even heard of pangolins.

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