On this trip, I wanted to figure out why thatвЂ™s happening - and what might be done to stop the pangolin from going extinct. The activists and researchers are doing amazing, helpful work. On a two-week trip to Vietnam and Indonesia, I did come across a few pangolin enthusiasts who have dedicated their lives to saving these curious creatures.ДIGITAL DOC: Inside the illegal animal trade You rarely find them in marketing campaigns. You donвЂ™t see them on the cover of National Geographic. International environmental groups and governments have been slow to fund pangolin research and rescue. But aside from pangolins, only elephants would come close to the most-trafficked title in terms of total numbers, said Dan Challender, co-chair of the pangolin specialist group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and a Ph.D. ItвЂ™s impossible to say for certain, of course, because poachers donвЂ™t exactly submit spreadsheets on their activities. Some experts say the pangolin is likely the most trafficked mammal in the world. No one knows how many pangolins are left in the wild.Д«ut scientists and activists say the number is shrinking fast. If you assume only 10% to 20% of the actual trade is reported by the news media, the true number trafficked over a two-year period was 116,990 to 233,980, according to Annamiticus, an advocacy group. By the most conservative estimates, 10,000 pangolins are trafficked illegally each year. (He's got a wooden carving of a pangolin in his office in Washington.) 'It's almost like, 'You've got a pangolin you've got a brown bag lunch - and also a medicine chest,'' said Crawford Allan, director of TRAFFIC North America and a pangolin lover. Pangolins - two species of which are endangered and all of which are protected by international treaty - are trafficked by the thousands for their scales, which are boiled off their bodies for use in traditional medicine for their meat, which is a high-end delicacy here and in China and for their blood, which is seen as a healing tonic. Or, more to the point: It could go extinct because of that. The pangolin could go extinct before most people realize it exists. When it's frightened, it actually curls up into a roly-poly ball. If the pangolin went to high school, it would be the drama geek - elusive, nocturnal, rarely appreciated and barely understood. It lacks the tigerвЂ™s grace, the rhinoвЂ™s brute strength. The pangolin possesses none of the cachet of better-known animals that are hot on the international black market. It could be described as a walking pinecone or an artichoke with legs вЂ“ a tiny dinosaur or friendly crocodile. Lucky is a pangolin - a rare, scale-covered mammal, about the size of a house cat, thatвЂ™s so bizarre it almost forces your brain to flip through a Rolodex of more-familiar images. If you hear his story it's easy to understand why. A padlocked door creaks open to reveal an animal that seems far too unassuming to be traded by the ton. Inside a metal vault here in rural Vietnam is a creature believed to be the most trafficked mammal in the world.

E-mail him at The opinions expressed in this story are solely those of the author. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. Sutter is a columnist for CNN Opinion and head of CNN's Change the List project.

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