Pangolins, covered with a full-body “armor” of overlapping scales, long used in traditional medicine, are among the most trafficked wild animals in the world, and face a high risk of extinction.

But recent research demonstrates the trade in pangolin scales is not necessarily the main driver of their decline.

Novel research in Nigeria, supported by insights from across West and Central Africa, has shown that local demand for wildlife to support food supplies is a major factor driving pangolins toward endangered status.

Understanding how social factors like food security and poverty fuel the illegal trade in meat, and mitigating the potentially negative impact of conservation interventions on local communities, could hold the key to developing a whole-system approach to conservation policy.

Now, the researcher behind that work, Charles Emogor, a 2024 Schmidt Science Fellow, is taking his unique conservation research methods to a whole new level, using GPS tracking and AI to identify the drivers of decline for endangered animals across a number of African countries.

When Charles began his PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK, his intention was to track pangolins in the Cross River region in south-east Nigeria and better understand their behavior.

But as he roamed the forest in search of pangolins he struck up conversations with the hunters he encountered (some of whom hunt illegally), and this led to his research taking an unexpected twist.

“The hunters were willing to chat, to tell me how many animals they had killed and the best places to find pangolins, and I realized that these conversations could hold the key to understanding what is driving pangolin exploitation,” says Charles, who grew up in the region.

Although hunting pangolins is illegal in Nigeria, some communities depend upon illegally caught wild meat, particularly when other sources of food are scarce.

Charles managed to gain the trust of the hunters because he was local to the area and didn’t present a threat to their livelihoods. “I established a relationship of trust over shared interest in pangolin ecology and made it clear that I wasn’t trying to criminalize anyone,” he says.

Gaining ethics approval for the work was complex, but Charles was able to outline for the review board at the University of Cambridge how the potential value of the research outweighed the risks and how his local knowledge would enable him to do the research safely.

Gathering data via more than 800 questionnaires and interviews with hunters, local market traders, and local people, Charles found that a staggering 98% of pangolins were caught for meat, with the majority of the meat eaten by the hunters themselves or traded locally.

High local demand meant that local meat prices were three to four times higher than for scales, and over two-thirds of the scales were discarded.

The research, which was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution in June 2025 and won the best PhD thesis award for zoology and conservation science in the UK, has challenged assumptions around the drivers of pangolin decline and has highlighted the need for a whole-system approach to wildlife conservation that takes into account entire wildlife trade chains from local through to international.

Building on this, Charles published a commentary in Science Magazine calling for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and other international conservation bodies to recognize domestic drivers of exploitation, such as food insecurity and local demand for meat, when designing wildlife protection policies.

His current research, funded by Schmidt Science Fellows, could help conservationists understand how changes in enforcement affect both wildlife and livelihoods, helping design community-based solutions — such as seasonal support or alternative protein sources — that protect species while safeguarding food security.

“What I’m trying to do is twofold,” explains Charles. “I want to understand the patterns and drivers of illegal hunting, which could be landscape variables like slope, elevation, and rainfall, or social variables like poverty and deprivation.”

“But this data is also crucial in protecting livelihoods and food security,” says Charles. “We need to know how much food and income communities will lose given an improvement in ranger patrol effectiveness.”

Supported by his colleagues in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University and the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge, Charles is branching into a completely new area of research.

“The Schmidt Science Fellowship is allowing me to take a huge risk, which is already paying off,” says Charles.

Charles is now using a combination of GPS tracking and AI to spot patterns in illegal hunting, which will help optimize how ranger patrols operate, focusing them on the locations where they will have the greatest deterrent effect.

“For me, the most exciting outcome of using AI is to see if we can start to predict where illegal hunting is likely to happen in the future and stop it happening before it even starts.”

“For me, the most exciting outcome of using AI is to see if we can start to predict where illegal hunting is likely to happen in the future and stop it happening before it even starts,” he says.

But Charles recognizes that the only way we can really protect endangered species is to engage with local communities, understand their needs, and work with them, not against them.

And he is passionate about bringing the community into all aspects of conservation.

“I grew up surrounded by nature and was always interested in it, but the only career in conservation that I knew about was to become a ranger,” says Charles.

Unsure of what to do after studying forestry and wildlife management at Cross River University in Nigeria, he went knocking on lots of doors and was eventually offered an opportunity to work for a large conservation organization.

“This was my lucky break,” he says.

The experience helped him explore different conservation career options, leading him to pursue a Master’s and then a PhD.

Now Charles is determined to make it easier for others to follow in his footsteps.

While carrying out his PhD, Charles founded an organization called Pangolin Protection Network, which aims to bring volunteers, scientists and local people together to raise awareness of pangolins and reverse their decline.

The organization offers internships and provides opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to gain the skills needed to work in wildlife conservation.

Charles’s research is changing our approach to conservation and making the future look a little brighter for all endangered species.

Photography: Alex Moore