Speaker
Jeremy McBride
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Illegal wildlife trafficking is a roughly $20 billion-a-year global industry, ranking only behind guns, drugs, and human trafficking.
Tony Biscaro served a 40-year prison sentence — the single longest ever for marijuana smuggling — and was released to find legal weed shops on every corner in Miami.
One in every five reptile species is now threatened with extinction, a figure that is growing at an accelerating rate driven by the pet trade and smuggling.
When Jurassic Park came out, everyone wanted a pet dinosaur. Strictly Reptiles in Hollywood, Florida was suddenly selling 5,000 green iguanas a week. Those iguanas grew up, got released, and are now falling out of trees across South Florida — a textbook case of pop culture triggering ecological disaster.
Anson Wong from Malaysia was the Pablo Escobar of the global reptile trade, supplying rare animals — including Komodo dragons — to buyers across the world. He was caught in a sting, extradited to the US, and served the longest wildlife crime sentence at the time. The animals seized from him went on to stock some of America's biggest zoos.
Mario Tabraue was sentenced to over 100 years in prison for murder and drug trafficking. He served 12. Nobody — not even the DEA agent who put him there — knows why he got out. That agent, Larry Lovelace, now lives in rural West Virginia with a gun within reach every night, still expecting retaliation.
One in every five reptile species is now threatened with extinction, and that number is growing. The exotic pet trade, habitat loss, and illegal smuggling are all accelerating the collapse — and most people don't even know it's happening because reptiles lack the charisma of pandas or elephants.
The illegal wildlife trade and the drug trade aren't just parallel industries — they actively overlap. Smugglers force-fed cocaine to boa constrictors to evade customs, packed drugs beneath layers of live animals in crates with spitting cobras on top, and exploited the chronic under-resourcing of US Fish and Wildlife inspection teams.
The illegal wildlife trade has flipped. Native American turtles — wood turtles, spotted turtles, box turtles — are now being collected across the Midwest and shipped to China and Taiwan, where they fetch thousands of dollars each as exotic pets. A recent confiscation was valued at half a million dollars once the turtles reached the Chinese market.
Eric Goode was hiking in the California mountains when a rattlesnake bit him through his river sandals. Over the next two hours he felt a metallic taste, then the sensation of sandbags crushing his chest. The hospital ran out of antivenom — all 36 vials — and had to get more from Ventura via Highway Patrol while he lay on a gurney thinking he was going to die.
Most people think of wildlife crime as a niche issue. It's a $20 billion-a-year global industry, ranking fourth among all illegal trades. And reptiles are the perfect smuggling cargo: portable, quiet, and nearly impossible for overwhelmed customs agents to identify.
Golden coin turtles sell for $20,000 to $40,000 in China. Yunnan box turtles — once thought extinct for 50 years — can fetch $100,000 or more. Pound for pound, rare turtles may be the most valuable animals on earth, yet almost nobody is talking about it.
Every major animal-themed movie creates a wave of demand for that animal as a pet. Finding Nemo emptied clownfish from reefs. Harry Potter flooded Asian markets with owls. Jurassic Park turbocharged the iguana trade. Now Zootopia is driving snake demand in China. The most well-intentioned entertainment becomes a poaching driver.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Business 34%
- Science 33%
- Society & Culture 33%
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