Jim McMahon

This scaly creature is the world’s most trafficked mammal—and one of the world’s most endangered. The tree-dwelling pangolin, native to Africa and Asia, is illegally hunted for its meat, which is sold on the black market in places like China, where it’s considered a delicacy and is wrongly believed to contribute to kidney health. In Vietnam and Indonesia, the pangolin’s keratin scales are used to make clothes, as well as medicines thought to treat skin ailments. In addition to poaching, which has killed more than 1 million pangolins over the last decade, agriculture and logging have led to large-scale habitat loss. The man in the picture is a member of the Tikki Hywood Trust in Zimbabwe, a charity that rescues and rehabilitates pangolins so they can return to the wild. “Sadly, none of the pangolin species are making a comeback,” says Lisa Hywood, the organization’s founder. “Very few countries are actually enforcing their laws and convicting pangolin poachers.”