Pangolins are so valuable, has captive breeding really never succeeded?

Pangolins can be bred in China; they are a rare medicinal animal with high medicinal value, covered in an outer layer like armor. In China, pangolins are a national second-class protected animal and mostly live in tropical and subtropical regions.

It is estimated that from the 1960s to 2004, the number of pangolins in China dropped sharply, and pangolins are in fact already critically endangered animals.

At present, China's pangolin captive breeding bases are mainly distributed in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan and other provinces, but the total number bred is still less than 300. Pangolins have very specific feeding habits and feed exclusively on ants. Under captive conditions, relying on catching termites by hand to feed them is very difficult. Each pangolin needs to eat about 100 grams of termites per day, and generally the largest termite colony contains no more than 1,000 grams.

Moreover, termite nests are hard to find, and digging out the nests is especially labor-intensive. Anyone who wants to breed them must be fully prepared; they are not as simple as chickens, ducks or fish.