Locked In with Ian Bick - Inside the Illegal Wildlife Trade — A Crime You Never See | Monique Snosnowski

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Monique Sosnowski is a wildlife crime researcher, professor, and security specialist who studies one of the most hidden criminal industries in the world — the illegal wildlife trade. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, she exposes how animal trafficking, poaching, and black market networks actually operate, including shocking cases happening right here in the United States. From the underground tiger trade to the reality of people keeping monkeys as pets, Monique breaks down how these industries thrive, why enforcement is so difficult, and how these crimes often go unnoticed despite generating billions globally. _____________________________________________ #WildlifeCrime #WildlifeTrafficking #AnimalSmuggling #IllegalTrade #TrueCrime #CrimeStories #Conservation #WildlifeProtection _____________________________________________ Connect with Monique Sosnowski: Instagram: @m_sosnow LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/moniquesosnowski _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Inside the Illegal Wildlife Trade 01:05 Monnique Suznowski’s Background 03:52 Growing Up Loving Animals & Africa 06:42 First Exposure to the Ivory Trade 09:45 How Big the Wildlife Trafficking Industry Really Is 12:32 Wildlife Crime in the United States 14:34 Why Wildlife Crime Penalties Are So Low 15:35 Major Federal Wildlife Crime Cases 18:32 How Wildlife Trafficking Happens in the US 20:40 Most Trafficked Animals in the World 21:54 The Psychology Behind Wildlife Traffickers 23:39 Exotic Pets in American Cities 25:40 Keeping Tigers and Big Cats as Pets 28:12 How Animals Are Smuggled Across Borders 31:32 Border Control & Wildlife Trafficking Detection 33:52 Tiger King Effect & Wildlife Crime Myths 36:40 Zoos, Ethics & Wildlife Rescue Controversy 39:01 Why Americans Want Exotic Pets 43:20 Animal Abuse & Illegal Exotic Pet Discoveries 45:48 Marine Life Trafficking & Aquarium Trade 50:15 Why She Chose Education Over Law Enforcement 54:40 Environmental Crime in the Justice System 01:00:08 Who’s Really Behind Poaching Operations 01:04:14 Media Attention & Public Awareness 01:05:51 What Shocks Students the Most 01:07:32 Why Prosecutors Don’t Understand Wildlife Crime 01:12:46 Repeat Offenders & Weak Sentencing 01:13:51 The Future of Wildlife Crime Enforcement 01:16:02 Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What do you think were some of the most shocking elements you came to discover when you entered this world? He was cloning this sheep. He was selling trophy hunting permits to people. The sheep got out, and now you have biologically cloned, genetic mutants of sheep running around Montana. I am a wildlife crime and security specialist,

so I do a lot of research on wildlife and environmental crime, and I'm also a professor, so I get to teach these topics to college students. Monique Suznowski studies the illegal wildlife trade, and what's happening behind the scenes is worse than most people realize. From the underground tiger trade in the U.S. to people keeping monkeys as pets, she breaks down how these black market networks actually operate. In this episode, she shares some of the craziest cases she's come across, how animals are trafficked and sold,

and why these crimes are so difficult to stop despite happening in plain sight. So I grew up in Chicago in Illinois. I went to undergrad there. I spent my whole, you know, younger life there. And then school took me. I lived to the UK. So I lived in the UK for a year to do my master's. And then from there, I found my home in New York and did my PhD in the city and never left. How did you get into teaching? Were your parents teachers or what was that like? You know, it's really funny because I never, I never really personally. this expecting to be a professor or a teacher. I really pursued my career for the research aspect of it. So my parents were actually, my dad was an attorney and my mom was a chemist, so she worked kind of with like paints and chemical. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%.

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actually a while ago. But I never really pursued my field thinking that I was going to become a professor. It just kind of like naturally emerged as like one of the best ways for me to be able to do the research that I want to do and like get into the field and travel and do research on topics that I was interested in. And then also what's so important to me is like sharing that with whomever. Like again, just like being on a podcast, but like talking to students and being able to interact. with people and talk about environmental and wildlife crime issues. So teaching just kind of like became the perfect avenue for me to do that. What kind of attorney was your dad? He was actually,

he studied political science and international law. So he worked more on the political science immigration kind of side of things. So a little bit different from what I do, but always what the one thing that we really have shared in common is just kind of an oddly perfect shared love for Africa. Like both of us, my dad did his PhD actually looking at like African mercenaries and one of the books that I've written, I co-wrote with him on a mercenary operation in the country of Benin. So we just kind of both had this like independent love for Africa. And I think we only discovered that a little bit later in life. Like I didn't even know he had this like deep love for it and for kind of the politics and international affairs and all of that. And then I ended up just

absolutely falling in love with the wildlife and just like the nature escapes and just vastness and the people and cultures and all of that kind of stuff. So it really kind of worked out beautifully that we have that shared thing. But I'm kind of different sides of, you know, how we've fallen into it. So was that your inspiration to get into wildlife crime or was that an inspiration before? No. So I have just always loved animals. Like I always had like animals when I was little. I always loved being around animals. I was just connected with them. And I in college studied environmental studies and psychology and was just like really interested in just both human behavior and like our natural world and how we can interact. you know, more effectively with it, more kindly for both of our sakes, like for the, you know, for conservation's sake and for us as people. And through that, I just got really interested in,

like, the human environment dynamic. And it kind of just spiraled into me finding research internships in Africa and just being like, oh my gosh, I want to go so bad. I had gone once when I was in, like, I think it was eighth grade or so. I was a, like, there was, I don't even know if this program still exists, but I was like a U.S. student ambassador. And I got to travel to South Africa with like a group of students. And we visited schools and did like conservation volunteering work. And it was kind of like a political relations, kind of like sharing cultures type of thing for youth. And I got to spend like a day or two in South Africa on, like in a natural park on

safari. And I was just absolutely like mind blown and completely fell in love with it and kind of ended up trying to figure out how to incorporate that into my job. But like I kind of went through college in my master's program, like not really knowing what I was actually going to do? Like I went to my master's. I did at the University of Bristol in, it was global wildlife health and conservation, which is a mouthful. But it was one of the only programs that allowed me to like really do whatever thesis in conservation I wanted to. So I got to work on the illegal ivory trade across Africa and across the world, which was super, super interesting. And I just kind of

progressively got hooked and like started realizing that I could make things. And I could make this like a career and like really live studying these issues and sharing them with the world. So it kind of just like happened because I just kept pursuing my interest and not even knowing like that I was going to become a professor or that like I could really do research like as a job too. So it really just worked out perfectly. Tell us about the ivory trade that you first studied. Oh my gosh. So I've just completely fallen in love with elephants. They're my favorite animal by all accounts. The ivory trade has been going on for probably, you know, as long as humans have interacted with bully mammoths and, you know, elephants throughout our history. So ivory is

actually just, I don't want to misspeak, but I'm pretty sure it's just the upper incisors are like the upper teeth of the elephant that is coming out right as an ivory tusk. So the material of ivory is actually the exact same thing that's in all of our mouths as teeth. And the ivory trade has really boomed throughout history for just like decorative purposes. It boomed for a long time for piano keys, right? Ivory like piano keys and all of that. Sculptures, tools, like ivory handles on like kitchen knives or like, you know, like really nice knives, jewelry, all of that. But the, very unfortunate thing is that to get ivory, you do have to kill an elephant. So that was a misconception, honestly, in China for a very long time. People just thought culturally that

the tusks just fell off because, like, we lose our teeth. So people think that, like, elephants just lose their tusks and you can just, like, find them and use them. And there was a huge behavioral study that was done, kind of studying that in China and how we could change. people's thoughts around elephants and ivory and to get them to stop purchasing it for primarily for status symbols. So yeah, it's it's been a massive, massive trade. The convention on international trade in endangered species of fauna and flora or cites, it's like our international body convention that monitors trade and helps set rules about like what is legal to trade, how much is legal, what's illegal. They banned the trade. I,

believe it was 1989. So since 1989, the ivory trade has been luckily illegal, but that does not mean that it has stopped much like any crime, you know, like drugs, weapons, trafficking people, murder, whatever it is, right? Like making a law doesn't stop it entirely. So it's been going on for quite some time. It's a multi, multi, I mean, the wildlife trade in general is valued at up to, illegally is valued up to I think $23 billion per year and it falls behind the trade illegal trades in narcotics arms humans and then it's like wildlife and environmental products so it's definitely up there and it's just such a it's just such an incredibly interesting topic and especially like once you start interacting with a lot of these animals you really get a different

perspective on the trade and I'm definitely not someone who is either like pro trade or anti-trade. I really approach the issue as what do the ecologists and like the biologists and people say is ethical and sustainable for our planet, right? We can't say that like we're not going to, we're just going to like cut the leather trade entirely or something. Again, just like with banning anything. It's not going to be like an easy. stop. So yeah, it's a really, really interesting world to do research it. And the ivory trade is something that really got me, I think, first started into it. What do you think were some of the most shocking elements you came to discover when you entered this world of wildlife?

That's a great question. I think the size of it first, I think is mind-boggling because even several years ago, it was very unspoken about. You know, like people really didn't talk about it. People weren't really aware of it. Even from the like lawyers, judges side of it, law side of it, people didn't really like care about it because we are obviously dealing with so many issues at the same time. So just the scale of it in general was insane to me. And as I've gotten more involved in the research side of it, I think.

right now I've been working on a project looking at like terrorist group involvement in wildlife trafficking as well as organized crime group involvement and I think really the degree to which crime groups and terrorist groups over time have in some way become involved is just fascinating to me because at the end of the day it's just like a business to them and money and a portfolio of making money and you know you diversify your investments you diversify what you're trafficking so if you can traffic arms with some elephant ivory or with some rhino horn or with some you know tiger cubs or something and we know that it's such an under-prioritized crime it's quite easy to get away with it in a lot of places so that to me is also shocking and then

I think lastly just the degree to which we have let this kind of run amok for so long, and to which people, and including prosecutors, judges, just the general public, has not prioritized this as an issue that we really need to get behind, I think is probably the other thing that was the most kind of like shocking thing to me. Do you think it's not prioritized because it's more international these types of crimes, or are you seeing a lot in the United States? Oh, there's a ton in the United States. The United States is one of the biggest consumers of wildlife products.

So we import a ton of stuff. It's really underprioritized because there's kind of a lack of education around it, a lack of awareness. There's different laws everywhere. So kind of people are bringing things in for different reasons. And a lot of people don't know that they're bringing in illicit products just like in their luggage back from a vacation because they bought. like, you know, some kind of like exotic reptile skin bag at like a street stand or, you know, like people just get into stuff and they don't know. But I think it's also over time, it's been kind of when you're dealing with federal prosecutions and even state prosecutions and you're

dealing with like murders and like human trafficking and drugs and then you get like a case where someone was overfishing or like someone trafficked a tiger cub. It's like, all right, like don't do it and whatever, like, you're not, that one animal or that one person isn't making that much of a difference. And it's not, it's, it's often called a victimless crime because we're talking about right animals and nature being the victim and they can't file a police report or, or stand up for themselves in that way. So a lot of the times there's a lack of reporting. There's a lack of knowledge. We can't, you know, just expect people to know these things and expect federal prosecutors or state, you know, prosecutors, whoever to to know the severity of these crimes and

like the impact that it has on our ecosystems and biodiversity and like our clean, you know, clean air, clean water, all of these things like our sustainability as humans on Earth. So it's really been something that's been allowed to kind of just flow in the background. And to this day, one of my biggest projects that I've been working on for the past several years is looking at federal prosecutions related to wildlife and environmental crime. The prosecutions are like, so the sentences, the fines, the penalties are incredibly low for what they're like nearly nothing for what people are actually doing. It's really people getting slaps on the wrist. So then it just kind of continues to persist. And the value years ago, one kilo of rhino horn cost.

more, or you could sell it for more than one kilo of gold or one kilo of cocaine. So when you're talking about things that have a social value that's that high and you can get that much money, and then even if you are caught, you're just going to get a slap on the wrist or like a small fine. Why wouldn't you keep trafficking, right? Like there's logically, there's no reason for you if you're, you know, organized crime or, you know, trying to make money, even to feed your family if you're like a local poacher and you're not even really going to get in trouble. So there's, It's just a very complex dynamic system that has really allowed this kind of crime to just continue to persist over time.

Can you give us an example of one of those cases you've looked at and studied? Yeah, there are some wild ones in the United States. So there was a really big case that I actually commented on recently. It's a little bit more like esoteric, but it's something that we're moving forward towards. There was a man in Montana that had imported. or had somehow gotten his hands on, I believe it was a Marco Polo sheep, which is a very endangered species of sheep from, like, I believe it originates in like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, like that area. And he had actually figured out how to biologically clone this sheep. So he was

cloning this sheep and had sheep babies. And then he was selling like, trophy hunting permits to people in Montana and from out of state to come and kill these sheep to, you know, so that they can have like a trophy hunt. So because it's such like an exotic species. So he kind of bypass the system. And he was like, if I get one, I can multiply them. And then I'll just sell permits to hunt them. So that's been a really interesting case. And I don't actually know what the final sentencing was for that one. I think that one probably got sentenced a little bit higher just because it was such a talked about case. But like that's going on in Montana. Like, and then the fun, I don't want to say the funniest part, but like, long story short,

the sheep got out. And now you have like biologically cloned like genetic mutants of sheep running around Montana. And the cops and I believe like Fish and Wildlife Service or the local environmental police were running around trying to capture these sheep so that they didn't like mate with other local populations and then create, you know, whatever kind of offspring that would have been. So that's one of the weirder ones that's coming in. But a lot of them in the U.S. are trafficking of species. So a lot of trafficking of, I mean, literally anything from live animals, like live primates, little monkeys that people are bringing in to sell us pets. There's a huge market for traditional, I mean, what we consider like traditional Chinese medicine or like are more

Eastern medicines using everything from like ground up rhino horn to like exotic plants that we aren't supposed to be trading in to like tiger bone wine, which is literally like a wine drink that they make from the bones of wild tigers. And of course, if you get it from a wild tiger instead of a captive tiger, it's higher, you know, it's supposed to have like higher quality or, you know, higher effectiveness. Like bear bile, there's like bear bile factories across Asia where they literally have bears in cages

and they like hook up their like glands from inside and like literally farm their stomach bile and then use that for like medicinal purposes. There's a lot that comes into the United States. Like a lot of those products come in through our, Western borders because of the Asian populations across like California and our Western states. But a lot of it comes into New York too. There's ivory trafficking in New York. There's there was a couple of huge busts years ago that I actually know some of the the DEC or the Department of Environmental Conservation

Cops that were involved in these busts like just in the middle of Manhattan, like antique shops selling you know like just ivory. You just had to know where to go and what to say and they would they had it. So there's a ton of this stuff in the United States coming in, getting exported, getting crossed over our local borders, and also like happening within the states, whether it's like illicit fishing in our coastal waters or hunting out of season, hunting cloned sheep, like whatever it is. The U.S. has its fair share of federal prosecutions in particular relating to all of this kind of stuff. stuff. Hey, everyone in the Providence in Boston area. If you're looking for a fun night out, you've got to check this out. René Graziano, star of mob wives, is coming to Swansea, Massachusetts on April 18th for a brand new immersive theater experience called Married by the Mob. This isn't your typical show. The audience actually becomes part of a live mob wedding. Renée plays the mother

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I think one of the most seized products are like leather products. So a lot of like exotic like crocodile skins, like cayman skins, like lizards, all that kind of stuff. everything that's used for like shoes, purses, watches, wallets, like all of our small leather goods and like larger leather products. If you look at photos of like our US Fish and Wildlife warehouses where stuff has been seized, it's shockful of just these like crocodile-esque alligator type skins. Galore. And when we've done studies too, we see that those products typically are what's most, at least what's most commonly seized. And for like any crime, it's hard to say because it's crime.

So the goal is to not get caught. So it's really just reporting off of like what actually does get caught. So but I would definitely say that I think are like small other products are the most popular. Do you study the psychology of the criminal that does this? Like for instance, in snakes on a plane, the guy was fascinated with all like thousands of these species of snakes. of snakes. And I'm sure there's people in the U.S. that have those types of fascinations. Why does someone even need that? And what's this person thinking? It's so interesting. I mean, some people just have fascinations with them. A lot of it around the world is just like a money-making thing.

Like, people need to feed their families one way or another. So especially across like Africa, Latin America, you see a lot of people poaching because they can make, you know, money for their family for the whole year. from killing one or two different species or trafficking them. But a lot of it is in terms of like the purchasing is status. Like we, if you look at the Middle East too and people having like cheetahs on a leash or tigers on a leash or like, you know, posing with their like souped up, I don't know, Ferraris or like whatever the most expensive cars are and having these exotic pets,

even if you look at Pablo Escobar, right? Pablo Escobar had an entire zoo of like all these exotic species that we're like still trying to figure out what to do with his hippos that are just like loose in Columbia right now. So a lot of it is status. Some of it is fascination, but that's, I think, a lesser. The fascination, I think, is a little bit lesser just because the people who are fascinated in them, I think, are a little bit more interested in, like, the sustainability of it, and they know more about the species.

And if they're getting one illegally, I think they're more commonly just getting like one or two to have it as opposed to being like an actual trafficker, like engaging in the trafficking itself. But it's still illegal just to have that object or that animal. Yeah. And we've seen that again, if we want to talk a local like in New York, there have been tons of busts of like people having full-fledged breeding operations, like elicit snake breeding operations for exotic species. Just like in their apartments in New York City. I was just bringing up this case if you Google like NYPD tiger like Harlem apartment there was um somebody in Harlem several years ago I think it was like in 2002 or three or something who just had a

425 pound tiger living in their Harlem apartment with them it was their pet its name was ming um and NYPD to respond and like figure out what to do with this there was a case several years ago of someone just walking I believe it was like a cougar a mountain lion they're just We're just walking it on a leash around Harlem, like, or the Bronx or somewhere, like, just because it was their pet. So it's really interesting. People's, like, fascinations and how they end up getting these pets. And it's almost, it's, these animals are not easy to keep alive, right? They're not domesticated.

You can't just, like, go to PetSmart or Petco and get, like, kibble for your tiger, right? Like, it's hard to keep these things alive. They're not meant to, I mean, you have an entire, like, educated zoo. staff typically that is making sure their diet is like meeting all of their wild requirements. So a lot of these animals do die in captivity when they are trafficked alive. If they even, you know, make it they're alive. So it's really, really interesting to kind of study this psychology of like how do you even live with like a cheetah? Is that safe? Can someone safely do that? I mean, someone, if you are educated in like that species and like, you know, maintaining it and keeping it,

I'm sure there's ways to like hypothetically safely do it. But I think in like 99.9% of circumstances, the answer is going to be no. Like they're not domestic animals. There's, there's, these animals are not bred. Like we've bred our dogs and cats for certain demeanors, right? so that they're not going to hypothetically like just snap and bite us or like, you know, hurt us. Whereas the wild animals are meant to have those instincts so that they can hunt for themselves so that they can defend themselves so that they can do all of that. So it's really, really, really unsafe to have these pets in your home or like on your property safely, even in states that you can. And one of the projects I worked on recently with a colleague was on tiger trafficking in the U.S. We were comically working on this.

She's a tiger like ecologist and conservation scientist. And we got together years ago to study tiger trafficking within the United States. The U.S. has more tigers in captivity than are alive in the wild. People love tigers and people have tigers. and for a very long time, there was not a lot of regulation on whether or not you could legally have a tiger just chilling in your home. So one of the things that we were studying was kind of how these tigers were coming into the states, you know, what this dynamic was. But what was really cool was soon after we kind of published this. I mean, there had already been a huge conversation about this, especially with like Tiger King was coming on at the exact same time that we were studying this.

And we're like, oh my gosh, this is actually going to have like some, maybe it's going to pick up like some hype about this issue. They passed what was called the Big Cat Public Safety Act because, like, if you look it up, there's a lot of cases where, like, tigers or other big cats are just, like, escaping from people's homes and are, like, running through the streets. And then it's the local police department and animal controls job to go and, like, catch this tiger that's just, like, frolicing through the streets. because it doesn't know where it is or, you know, like, what, where it's supposed to be or it's not in a natural environment or, you know, it's been like housebred. So, yeah, it's really, really interesting. But now there's a lot more, as we're kind of seeing more of these issues come to light and getting more attention, there's definitely more regulation coming forward about, like,

that's definitely legal to have a tiger as a pet. How are tigers smuggled in the United States? Oh, oh, so many, so many ways. One of the big ways is actually through shipping cargo. So we have, I mean, if you drive by any of our major marine ports, like Port of Newark or, you know, across anywhere in the U.S., Miami, California, we get it so many shipping containers in and they're coming from all over the world. And there's no way to inspect all of them. Like there's just, you could not, if you could not, if you could not, if you. you tried to. And the technology is increasing for that. But one of the ways that people do smuggle a lot of wildlife products is through cargo, because it doesn't really get inspected. So you can just put a tiger cub in there and, you know, give it enough kind of food and water to hopefully make it and then deal with it once it comes in. But people also have just, I think they were, I'm pretty sure I had photos of somebody just shipping a tiger cub in like a cardboard box just with like holes

poked in it and just putting it in the mail. People have smuggled them in just like pet carriers through you know like through like TSA and just being like oh it's my puppy or like my kitty. And it's a tiger cub because they're really small when they're you know, itty bitty, tiny babes. but then they of course become like 425 pound monsters that you soon have to figure out how to have not kill you so people do lots of crafty things with like smuggling live animals people birds are a huge one people love exotic birds people put them in like toilet paper rolls or like your paper towel cardboard like tubes they'll shove like songbirds in there and then either put them in their luggage or like put them like like wrap them around their bodies and try to go through like airport security like

chirping and being like no one that's my phone like just like have it on their bodies um people do crazy stuff to try to get these get animals in and smuggle them into the u.s it's and around the world it's it's mental to see the number of different ways people have come up with smoker Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita with real lime, blue agave nectar, and real margarita taste. Taste your escape. Cayman Jack, America's number one margarita.

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Valley 362326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. Fuggling live animals. So it's like TSA have, you know, how they have like Border Patrol and different types of agents equipped to handle situations. do they also have environmental police at airports? So from kind of my understanding of really how it works within our airports, for the most part, it's TSA is the front lines, right?

So they're expected to detect major issues with people and their luggage. But our airports on kind of the backside do have, I don't want to say, definitely not all of our airports, but our major airports do have U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents and inspectors at them that are charged with, you know, being there in case there is live animals or looking at all the stuff that is coming in through plain cargo because people also, right, put live tiger cubs and other things just in plain cargo because it's obviously traveling much quicker than a shipping container.

So that's another way. It's probably the most popular way for like live animals. So fish and wildlife does have inspectors at ports and they are regularly looking for those. And they have also like at this point, like, you know, algorithms and, Things that they know are red flags with imports where they know to inspect certain things or to pay a little bit more attention to certain things than others. But a lot of the times, unfortunately, it is up to like not environmental cops, just some

other type of police, whether it's TSA or like your local cops or whoever that are expected to or who end up on the front lines with these issues. that obviously this is an anomaly for them and they have to figure out who to call and what to do and how to deal with it. And even when you're looking at fish and wildlife, there's no way you can train a fish and wildlife agent to know like every single species of plant,

every single species of butterfly or like whatever it is that people are importing and exporting to detect whether something is legal or illegal. So there's a lot of new technology that's coming forth to look at like DNA scanning and just like imagery and, using AI to like help agents actually be able to figure out what they're looking at and whether it's legal or illegal to be bringing it in or out the way they are. Do you think it's possible to domesticate a tiger?

I mean, I would say a tiger is probably really pushing it. I worked at, I volunteered and it was like a research volunteer at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. That was actually one of my, like, after going to South Africa, that was like my next kind of big Africa research wildlife thing. And they, as the name implies, specialized in rescuing cheetahs from human wildlife conflict. So a lot of the times, like, cheetahs would be eating like the local livestock or, you know, attacking livestock and farmers would shoot them in self-defense or, you know, in defense of their property. and then there would be like cubs or somehow like injured cats or whatever that would end up at the conservation fund. And like even a place that fully specializes in the cheetahs and a lot of the cheetahs they were getting to were from pet trade. So they were like born and raised to be handled by people.

Like they had one or two that you could, that they used for educational purposes that like you could not release them back into the wild. but there really is no way to like domestic. I mean, domestication is like a genetic process, right? So like we domesticated wolves into dogs. So there's no way to just like take a wild animal and just like domesticate it without like that genetic process happening. So for that purpose, I'm going to say no. There's a way to potentially have one without having it kill you. But that would probably be a full-term job.

And a lot of people have been like, I mean, even if you look at pipples or like other dogs, like, people have been or kids too have been like killed by domesticated animals. And like that's an animal that has been bred to be at home with you, right? So then take that to a wild animal and see what happens. It's an extremely unsafe environment. And it would have to be something that someone is like really, really specialized in. I mean, even at the zoos, they have like full protocol. right to ensure that nobody is ever injured by these animals and that these animals are living like as ethically as they can and and all of that so yeah i would say like domestication would be a very long-term thing that you would have to go like a process of like breeding for the gentler demeanor and all of that so that eventually you would have a tiger that didn't eat you for it's interesting what tiger king showed of that whole dark side of the industry because it wasn't just him there was multiple. I mean, that other guy that owned, I guess, the nicer compound of that. He got arrested recently for violations and then also taxes and stuff. But that there's a, there's a really

is a dark side to that industry. Oh, for sure. It's a huge industry. Like people, I mean, we've always, we live with wildlife, right? Like, we live in nature. We build our environments like within the natural world. It's inescapable just like living on planet Earth. So like there's always an interaction with animals that we have in one way or another. And it's just so interesting to look at how people choose to go about that and like these networks of traffickers and crime that happens, like I said, especially with like tigers in the United States. Tiger King got so much attention on that.

And it is such a huge issue. So yeah, it's truly fascinating. It's, it, I feel like there's like two kind of sides of the wildlife crime world. Like one is more of this like. organized networks of people. And the other side is more of like your incidental stuff happening of like tourists or like incidental poaching or, you know, like people not knowing or whatever it is. But yeah, there's there's quite a bit of organization and organized crime stuff, depending on how, again, how you kind of approach organized crime. But there's a lot of

organization to wildlife trafficking and environmental crime as a whole. Now the animals you see at zoos, are those trafficked legally or illegally or how does that? It's really interesting. A lot of the zoos actually are rescue centers for trafficked animals. So like when you get a tiger cub at JFK, what are you supposed to do with that animal, right? Like you need to, you have to do something with it. You can't. We're not just going to like put it down necessarily. So those will typically go to zoo like accredited AZA or the American Zoological Association accredited zoos.

So they'll end up somewhere with specialists again that like know how to deal with that species that can feed it. that can, you know, give it the mental enrichment and, like, everything that it needs. So a lot of those are at one point or another, like, it's, you know, its parents could have been trafficked. Other species are under what I had mentioned before, CITES, are, like, kind of convention that monitors, that, like, helps us establish all of the rules and regulations globally on what we can and can't trade in. there is permits that you can, like if you're a zoo, you can get legal permits to trade in certain species.

But it's typically only happening, like, between zoos for breeding programs. And sometimes those breeding programs are literally designed to potentially, like, repopulate a certain group of those species. So it's kind of mostly that those two dynamics. And yeah, just like breeding programs or event sometimes. I really don't think any zoo animals, I don't think, I don't want to say like almost any AZA like zoo animals at this point are ever taken from the wild. They're acquired from other zoos or from certain breeding programs at other zoos or are rescued species from the wild. So now when you see the boycotts of zoos or aquariums, is that because of the

treatment and not how they got the animals? Yeah, I think it's just a stance people have that animals should not be like they should be in the wild and they shouldn't be in zoos. But I think what people miss about zoos is like for the most part, I think one of the major like benchmarks that are accredited zoos have to have is they have to have educational programming and they have conservation programming. So they're not just like a business where you're paying to like go see a giraffe for the first time, right? Like there has to be educational work there. A lot of them, I mean, pretty much all of our major zoos are working with like sites in the wild, wherever that is, to do scientific work, to do conservation work, to learn about like the genetics of that animal

so that they can better inform like disease control in the wild or other things. And zoos are often one of the only ways, like most people are ever going to be able to see a giraffe or a zebra or a gorilla or whatever, right? Like, there's such an educational component to it where you can learn about species and, like, learn to love a species and learn how to protect species and what you should or should not be doing. But I think most of the protests we see about zoos, I mean, obviously, again, as long as it's like a legitimate. at zoo that people are protesting and not like a roadside like unaccredited thing. People just don't think that animals should be in cages. But I think, again, what they don't necessarily understand is that's for most of those animals. There's no other option. It's that or they're going to get put down. So zoos are kind of like the best way forward with conservation, the best way forward with

our research. Like how else are you going to get zebra genetics? You know, like, like, what else are you going to do? There's very few other options unless you're going to like traverse Africa and get a helicopter and dart them and like take their blood or we know whatever. A zoo is one of the only places where you can just have that interaction and, um, and do science and genetics and research and biological work and all that cool stuff. Um, so yeah, it's, it's a contentious people have their opinions, but there's a lot of good things that zoos do for sure. So now what do you think is America's fascination with having monkeys, apes, primates? mates, gorillas as pets. I watched that documentary because, you know, Connecticut is home to

like three or four of the countrywide attacks having your pet. Yeah. So interesting. I mean, you look at monkeys and you're like, oh, that's so cute. Or apes and you're like, oh, that's awesome. And people love to traffic them. There's a huge case recently where there's a baby gorilla that was being trafficked out of Nigeria that is now stuck, like, in Turkey, and they're doing, like, genetic work on it. But it was a live baby gorilla that someone was trafficking for the purpose of the pet trade. Like, people just, like, think they're really cute. And, like, I mean, I guess they think it's going to be sick to invite your friends ever and be like, hey, check out the chimp I have in this, like, enclosure. Like, I mean, it's just such an interesting

dynamic. And, again, it's not an easy, like, wild animals are not. not easy to keep. So it always boggles my mind that people have the time, energy, money to do that. And they think it's like worth it. But yeah, people, people have them at Connecticut. Like people will just, someone will just have like a baby gorilla in their house and they, they just think it's cute. And it so the problem is that so many of these animals are adorable as babies, right? Like a tiger cup, adorable. A gorilla baby. Adorable. And you see picket of them at rescue centers, like in a diaper or something, and you're like bottle feeding them, and you're like, oh, that's so cute. And then it, then you forget that it grows up. And it's not

like a little monkey, like, or a little ape. Like, it's, it's like a 400, 500 pound animal that is so much stronger than you and could just pop your head off at, like, with just like a gentle, accidental squeeze. You know what I mean? Like, they're, it's, it's mind boggling. But yeah, We've got people are, people love their animals and end up somehow getting these species. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing.

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problem that it state by state, it varies about the laws because those are more out there in the open that people have these as pets. Yeah. I think Connecticut might have changed their laws after those incidents of the woman getting her face mauled. Yeah. And like the police officers getting attacked. But is it because it's federally illegal and the states can have? have them? So there's different regulations on like imports and exports and interstate trafficking or interstate movement. So most of that's going to be federal, right? Like what's coming into the U.S., what's exiting the U.S., and then all of our interstate movements are going to be federally managed. So you can think of it, the same with like weed, right? Every state now

has their own rules and regulations and it still is not federally legal, which is, you know, you can't use a credit card or I don't, yeah, you can't use like a credit card or. whatever if you're buying, if you're going to like a dispensary. So the same kind of holds true with animals. And it's not like there's, I mean, even if we're weed, you were talking about like one product, right? For animals, there's, I don't even know how many species, right? Like if we want to talk about globally between like spiders and ants up to like gorillas, giraffes, whatnot. It's, it's really challenging to set uniform regulations about these things. And over time, they varied. So again, like even the Big Cat Public Safety Act, like that only recently came out.

And that one, that I believe is fully like federally enacted. But states have their own jurisdictions and they can set their own rules. So sometimes it's like they didn't think that they had to ban having a gorilla ass impact. You know, like when you're creating all of your laws, that's not like top of the list. Usually something happens. And then you're like, all right, guess we have to write a rule about that now because that's happened. So, a lot of these things like evolve over time and obviously like our courts and everything like what isn't like underfunded and under budgeted and under whatever so a lot of the times it's playing catch up and trying to make these rules after things have happened as opposed to

necessarily having them up forward and advanced. So society is that international body is like one of the things that helps us that helps tell countries and therefore that should be kind of trickling down to the states as to what is and isn't legal. But again, like, the states on their own do have their own rules and regulations and laws and policies as well. Do you find that there's a lot of abuse cases against these exotic wild life animals in the United States?

Like people having them and abusing them. Yeah, like we see with dogs and cats and domesticated animals. I mean, I would consider almost any domestic, like, keeping of a wild animal without being an accredited zoo as an abuse case. for the purpose of, again, like, the people that work at zoos, like, there's nutritionists that specialize in, like, primates, you know, and they're crafting diets and making sure that these species have what they need. What you see a lot with wild animals kept in people's homes is, like, we don't have access to what those species need. They're also not getting, like, the medical

care that they need because, I mean, unless you have, like, a black market type of, vet that you can be like, hey, can you come check on my gorilla? Like, it's been vomiting. Like, I don't know what, like, you know, what are you going to do in those situations or you can't just, like, get medicine for it if it does get sick. And they're also typically not getting the enrichment that they need, right? I mean, it's the same as if you kept a dog in a cage forever, right? Or, you know, all of our animal abuse cases. I think it's obviously it's one of those things where keeping a dog is legal. So then the abuse case is like your neighbor or someone can say something. but if you have an exotic pet illegally,

like it has to be discovered first to become an abuse issue. And like, I don't even know. We would have to look at the legislation to see how you could even, if it's even possible to get prosecuted, like, for abusing a gorilla. You know what I mean? Like, I don't even know that exists. I think you would really just get in trouble for having it in the first place. And then we would deal with, like, the other issues.

but yeah I think essentially having almost any animal including like a lot of our parrots and stuff a lot of it is abuse in a way because they're they're not living in the way that they are meant to be and what's like healthiest for them so a lot of them are like malnourished or they die or they have like brittle bones you know like they're they're always dealing with health issues because they're not getting what they need nutritionally and mentally like all these stuff things. Now, do you feel that most of these cases get discovered because someone sees it and reports it in, like a neighbor or they're in a community like the tiger in New York City? Yeah. And if that's a case, then do you think that there's just so many cases out there that will never be discovered

because people are living in, say, middle of nowhere, bumble fuck and we'll just, they can just keep it a secret. The animal will probably die there and bury it and no one will ever know. Totally. I mean, a lot of them, again, like, with these like tigers or gorillas or whatever that people have, like, something happens. Like, it gets out. And obviously then it gets found out. And someone's like, there's a tiger running across Main Street. Please help.

But yeah, a lot of the times it's like someone has to report it or something, like something happens and it ends up being reported. But most of the time, I guess people are either living with friends and family that, don't see an issue with it or like they're not going to call in on their friend and get them potentially like incarcerated for this issue. So yeah, it's really hard. Again, with this issue of it being like a victimless crime, like the animal can't say anything, right? So unless somebody else is reporting on it, then it's not going to get discovered. So I'm sure there's, especially with pets, like a lot more like even if you scroll on Instagram, like, there's regularly people, like, feeding their pet monkeys. And, like, sometimes I want to go and be like,

hi, this is definitely not legal. I'm like, even on Instagram, unless it very recently changed, there was no way. Like, there was, the only options are, like, reporting, like, animal abuse, but there's no, like, this is a very clearly an illegal pet. Like, you cannot have this, like, monkey in your bedroom that you're, like, feeding with bottles every day. And you're clearly not, like a wildlife vet that's like homing these animals because they were seized from from trafficking or something. So yeah, it's wild. But unless you're, I guess, posting on Instagram and like somehow get caught or somebody

reports on you, you can just live with and then just like hope you don't get attacked by your pet. Yeah, it's a really interesting issue. Now, we've talked a lot about the on-land animals. What about the on-sea animals? Do you see people with sharks or any other type of exotic animals? Aquarium people. Oh, yeah.

Everything, like I did research a couple years ago with a couple of my colleagues on coral trafficking. Like, even just getting exotic corals from like Fiji and New Zealand, like, oh God, people love their exotics, right? So, like, people will traffic them and, like, cool colored fish and stuff from all over the world. And there's like full-fledged processes for like how these things get harvested and then like bagged in certain, you know, waters. And then the fish is, you know, like Nemo style like in a little baggy. And then it goes in the box. Then it goes on the plane. And like people are then buying these exotics for their aquariums.

And again, with those like, we don't have rules and regulations to cover all these species. Like there's some, you know, more on our like sharks, whales, you know, are dolphins, right? are like bigger, more charismatic species that people pay more attention to. But when we're talking like aquarium fish, like that's an entire another realm on its own of people trafficking in those. And again, like it's hard to even say if you're a fish in wildlife agent, like what's legal, what's illegal? How do we even count the populations of these fish in the wild to know whether this trade is

like sustainable and like chill to have that fish at home or if you shouldn't have that fish like in your aquarium because there's only like 5,000 left in the wild, right? So it's a really complicated issue, but people having like sharks at home, little like porpoises or, oh yeah, people build like full-fledged aquariums. There's been cases with a shark found at someone's home. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, we're not talking obviously like a great white, but like they're, oh yeah,

people have sharks in their aquariums all the time. Like are like smaller species of sharks and stuff. Oh, yeah. But don't they grow? Some of them stay small. Like there's some species. of sharks that are just going to be like, like a tiger shark.

Yeah, like little sharks, right? They're not going to be that dangerous. And then obviously it scales up. And again, like, if you have the money and whatever, like the ability to build like a massive aquarium, like people do have larger species too. But yeah, it's people. There's like a whole world with the aquarium side of things

that people smuggle and breed and all that. No, something like an exotic fish. Is that really hurting anyone if the fish is in it's like a tank? Like in a tank. Yeah, it's in its right tank. It's in the right water. And can't that be readapted and safe in a way? Yeah, I think that really just depends on what the populations are in the wild.

And like if you're taking away from a super endangered population or not. Like if it's not an endangered population, it's probably legal to have that. And like there's no really big issue, right? like there is a whole side of legal trade. So yeah, there's definitely a lot, especially with aquariums, I think there's tons of species that are just like totally fine and legal to have. Yeah, as long as it's not like an endangered, like special species that's listed. Now, why do you decide to get into the teaching aspect rather than the actual law enforcement aspect of it?

I am just a non-confrontational person. And I think there's so much power to, like, sharing knowledge. And like me having a classroom of 30 kids each semester, teaching those 30 kids about environmental crime or wildlife crime, and they're going and talking to their family or friends about it. And then like every semester I have that impact. Like, I feel like I am getting a lot more impact from that. and I'm getting more kids that are honestly like interested in becoming like eco-cops,

working for fish and wildlife, working for your local like department of environmental conservation and like being the boots on the ground and being the ones with like the gun that are going up there and like enforcing and doing police work. I'm just I'm just I lean much more towards that kind of educational component and then being able to do the research. And even coming into this field like 10 years ago, there was so little research. from the criminal justice side of things. Like, it's a very new field from that perspective.

Like, the biology stuff, ecology stuff, has been there for decades, right? Where we're, like, monitoring populations and looking at even, like, colonialism and what was hunted and all of these rules and regulations and who made them and whatnot. But when it comes to really trying to study, like, the crimes and trafficking and, like, illegal fishing and all this stuff, like, it's only now starting to, like, kind of, boom. And it wasn't the case. So I just had such a fascination of like coming into a field and being able to study like whatever aspect I was interested in and like putting out research on a topic that like is so understudied and trying to get people like engaged with it and like excited about it.

And like just learning a new thing. And I think it's so interesting to just listen to this. And even listening to how people smuggle, like, it is fascinating. Like, I have a couple of students right now that are that are helping me read, like, federal prosecution cases within the U.S. And I'm like, okay, it sounds boring. You're going to have to read all these case documents, but I swear it's going to be fun. Like, and they're like, you have no idea. Like, this crazy Marco Polo, like, sheep guy or like what, like, they're coming up with

so many just reading these case files being like, you'll, like, you have to look at this case. Like, you got to. I got to share. like show you what I read about and I'm like this is so cool to see you get excited and like get into this topic and study it and and whatnot. So being able to kind of share that I think is just so exciting and it yeah it's so fun and I get to create more excitement for kids to become those cops as opposed to like me going through it and doing being like just one person. I get to kind of create my own little now I have my own little army of students and stuff that are interested in

this topic and doing research for me and with me. And it's just super cool to see. So now are all your students aiming to become actual law enforcement officers or are any going into your specific field? It's a total mix. So in our department, we're like the Center for Criminal Justice Studies at Farmingdale. So we have kids going into all aspects of criminal justice, like cops, lawyers, policy, victim services. Like you name some aspect of criminal justice. There's kids. interested in going into it. I just get to be the freak that does like the environmental stuff and tries to get kids excited about that. So like I get to create more classes on this topic. We're going to be teaching like wildlife forensics and I'm teaching like wildlife and

environmental law and getting kids interested in like becoming environmental lawyers and like working for our federal government under the, you know, our federal departments that like have lawyers specifically like environmental and natural resource divisions that are prosecuting these types of cases specifically. So kids are into kind of everything and then they take, they end up kind of either approaching me because they're interested in this work and becoming like a fish and wildlife agent or an environmental lawyer or I suck them in because it's one of the electives that are offered that like fits their schedule. And I'm like, and now it's my job. GAU super excited about this. Whether or not you ever deal with this again in your life, like it's just of,

super interesting thing. And it's such a, it's such a different area of policing. Like, when I have to explain to kids that, like, this is, they're so used to, like, urban policing issues and, like, being an NYPD officer or, you know, a county police officer or whatever. And then, and then I have to be like, okay, well, now imagine that you're in a national park in Kenya or in Angola, wherever. And there's, like, 15 of you for X, like hundreds of square kilometers. And you, and you, you, you now have to go detect victimless crimes. And you, oh, by the way, your budget is like $100. Like, figure it out, right?

So it's just such an interesting thought experiment to look at policing in this, like, completely different environment and, like, see them start to solve these puzzles of, like, okay, well, like, what's the best way to patrol? And, like, where do you patrol and how do you detect these crimes? And, like, one of the biggest ways that animals are poached is using snares. or like basically barbed wire like in a loop. And then it's like connected in trees. And then an animal will either put their head through it.

And then it like tightens. So it like nooses them or they'll like step into it and it catches their leg. And then the people, either the animal like bleeds out or dies on its own or then the person like comes back and kills it or whatever. But like how do you detect a wire in a national park? like with with little to know technology right so there's just so many fascinating like puzzles like that that I get to put kids through to really make them think about policing that's not just like being an NYPD officer or you know just working in like your more traditional urban policing settings that is just such a cool thought experiment for them whether or not they're ever again

ever going to deal with environmental crimes again just to have those like have that thinking exercise is just really, really fun. Now, those actual hunters that you're just describing, how are they held accountable? It's a comp. That's like one of the most complicated issues is when we're talking about, like, our low-level poachers, especially in like Africa, Latin America, and like a lot of our source countries, a lot of the poachers are just feeding their families.

A lot of them are hunting bushmeat or like wild meats to feed their families or to sell to feed their families. And most of the time, most of the time, a lot of that kind of hunting is to a degree sustainable because these are cultures and communities that have been living this way for a long time

and know how to hunt sustainably. I worked with like an Inuit, with the Inuit community up in, like, Arctic Canada and talked to them kind of about this issue about like how they hunt like polar bears and whales and all these animals. And like they have such an incredible dynamic with the wildlife and knowing like that they just need to hunt like one in like this area. And that'll and then they can share that with their community and that's like a sustainable issue. So that's like one side of it.

And a lot of that has to do with us or people in general coming in, whether it's from that community or whatever from somewhere else. NGOs and potentially creating alternative livelihoods for them. So a lot of times it's like, hey, but like we could harvest bees and you could sell honey and, you know, like make money for your family or like we could grow these products or like, here's some chickens. Like how about we learn to harvest chickens and eggs and all of that for your family and your community? The issue is when these individuals are feeding like the trafficking side of things. And a lot of the times it's parallel to drug trafficking. Like the people on the streets are like not the main problem.

Like, right? They're not necessarily, they're often, right? Most people are just trying to like get by or make a living. It's like when you start going up that ladder in organized crime and in crime in general where you're like, all right, well, like who's facilitating this? Who's the middleman? Like who's the kingpin of this whole network? And like there's so many wild, not so many, but there's a number of wildlife like kingpins

across this world if we want to call them that, that are. on like our, you know, Homeland Security, like, most wanted lists or, you know, on like black lists for the U.S. too that we're fully aware of that are operating. Like there's someone operating out of a, I think it's called the King's Casino in Laos. And he has like a full-fledged wildlife crime, like enterprise. Right. So typically it's about getting those people and not our low level, you know, poachers, traffickers, whatever that are just trying to like get by. And a lot of sometimes like don't really know any better. Like they're just getting money and they're like, all right, it's sick. I can feed my family. So it's really complicated when we get to that low level

issue and also thinking about like colonialism and who made the laws and like who owns nature. Is it the communities that have been living there for centuries, right, millennia? Or is it the government or like, you know, whoever's influencing the law and policy and, you know, who's saying what's right and wrong? So it's the lower level issue is like a very complicated dynamic, but it's really about going up the chain and getting those people that are like really involved in the trafficking and organizing the trafficking and corrupting, you know, border control and whoever else to not look at those shipping containers who are like, just let that package through. It's chill, right? Nothing to hear there. There's nothing like

birds chirping or whatever. So yeah, there's, it's really challenging to deal with that accountability. But again, that's typically not necessarily like the target that we're going for. It's really a lot of the times going for those middlemen. You thought this was your run club era. Turns out it was more of a thinking about run club era. The good news? Someone's marathon training is about to start.

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Do you think this is not put out there enough in the media because there's not necessarily victims in most of these cases, aside from the animals, of course? Totally, totally. It's, I mean, it's the same thing if we talk about, I don't know, it's like what catches people's attention in the media, even if we look at, like, conservation issues, right? The animals that we talk about are like,

the cute animals that people love and, like, the pandas and the polar Bears. I mean, please, don't get me wrong. I love them too, right? But like, it's so much harder to fundraise for, like, an exotic lizard or, like, some, like, weird species that people are like, I don't care. Like, I have to pay my bills and, like, feed my family and take my kids to soccer practice. Like, I don't care about your species. It does not affect me. So it's hard to get the issue in people's attention in a way that is meaningful. and that we can really get people to, like, care about it and just even just know what's right and wrong. Like, that's really at the end of the day. It's like, most people care about animals. Most people care about nature. It's like, it's just a lack of knowledge as to, like, well, these species are endangered

or, like, it's really unethical to do X, Y, and Z. And usually once you tell your average person, they're like, oh, yeah, no, that makes so much sense. Like, duh, of course. It's more of like the select group of people that just don't care at all and are doing it for financial gain or for whatever else that is the problem and that we're like trying to tackle through the criminal justice system one way or another. What's something you see that surprises your students every time, like in every semester,

you always bring this up and the students are always surprised by it? I think the combination of how incredibly large this, the wildlife environmental crime realm is, like $23 billion. dollars. That's bananas when you think about that. We're trading in wildlife products, environmental products. And then when I show them like what the stats are for prosecutions in the U.S., they're like mind-blown typically. Like it's just, it's just incredible to see and like the discrepancy between like what judge you get. Like if your judge like truly cares about this issue or doesn't really care about this much about this issue and like what the

different state rules are and all of this like I think those two issues fascinate them the most because if we're talking like murder assault like whatever those are like we typically you know yes there's a range and like yes people get preferential or biased treatments and all this stuff but like it's more people are more aware of those things and like know what the sentences like typically are you know, what that is. But with wildlife, they don't necessarily know or they don't understand. And then they like, learn about the issue. And they're like, oh, yeah, we should care about this. And I'm like, okay, well, get this. Like, buckle your seatbelts. People really don't get in trouble for this. And then they're all like, what do you mean? Like, what do you, like, what? So I think that's probably

one of the most shocking things, aside from just like going through a slideshow of all the crazy ways that people smuggle. Like, I never get boring. But yeah, I think, I think those are. kind of the biggest, like, heavy hitters. Now, do you find that judges and prosecutors are trained in this? Like, do you think they went through the same classes that these students are now going through? Or? No. And this is, this is an issue that I'm working to help Target, and there's lots of people out there right now that are trying to literally just train judges and prosecutors because a lot of these judges and prosecutors were, you know, just went through law school. And most of them went through all school, like, obviously several years ago or longer.

ago before this was like as big of in you know of a public issue um like environmental crime classes basically don't exist like we're creating the first of those classes um in these recent years across colleges and it's only where there is someone who's you know who can teach those issues again it's a very small field um when it comes to like the researchers and the policymakers and everyone like it's a it's a small world um so to have someone at a university that studies these issues and can teach these classes and is in a university that is like willing like that has the time and capacity to offer these types of classes it's that's really all new um so yeah the the short answer is they they really most of them haven't been trained unless they are like the

specialized attorneys and lawyers working for our our environment natural resource divisions that are specialized in this, but like your general run-of-the-mill judge prosecutor has, unless they have like a secret, you know, like thing where they're really interested in this issue. They haven't. And part of the stuff that we're really trying to do and that we see a lot of grants coming out for

is literally judicial trainings, whether it's in the U.S. or anywhere in the world, just like showing judges and prosecutors, like the scale of the issue, the severity of the issue, teaching them, like the laws that are available to like use and then you know what those prosecutions could or should look like and even like the evidence issue is so complicated like you're dealing with collecting evidence in typically like a

wild environment like how evidence collection like making sure that it's following chain of custody like making sure that your rangers at x park or whatever like have a camera and fingerprinting kits like in an underfunded area a lot of these groups. that I work with are literally like fundraising specifically just to like provide socks and boots to Rangers because like the parks literally can't afford them like it they just don't have the money for it. So you're dealing with that and like trying to get Rangers to care about these issues and also not get corrupt by like their family or friends who are like well just tell us where the rhino is like don't worry about it. To get around that and like provide them

what the resources they need and like all of this. It's just like a momentous effort to to really like bring everyone on board to this and like give them the tools they need and then like make sure chain of custody is followed and like that that's going to court and getting prosecuted correctly and someone isn't like corrupted in the court or you know like losing evidence or whatever and even like we use canines a lot in this field for like border control and and what like the realm of canine evidence even in just like your regular court take out the environmental issue like that's its own pandora's box of you know like how do we use that how is it prosecuted and now we're doing cool stuff um there's a program called hero i think it's called hero rat that's using

like african um i think they're african pouched rats um to help detect wildlife products at ports and all of that stuff too so like how do you use that kind of evidence in court like it's just such a it's such a wild world like and there's so much education that needs to happen from all levels and at the end of the day again like people care they just don't know um and that's really what we're trying to change what do you think is the reoffending rate on some of these cases have you ever followed someone that was say like like the sheep guy for example he gets convicted maybe he goes to prison are the chances are he reoffends and does something similar totally Yeah, the lack of sentencing or, you know, like the severity of sentencing, like, if you're getting a $200 fine on a large shipment or something and you lose like one shipment, you're going to ship again.

Like, it's just basic logic. I mean, traffickers are going to just continue to traffic, especially again when these, when the fines and sentences and all of that are not up there. And a lot of it's international. So, like, how do we even catch the people in the other country and, you know, bring them in and do all this kind of stuff? So there's a very high rate of reoffending. And that's, again, from like what we know and what we're able to study. But, I mean, if we just, like, logically look at it, I think, again, anyone that's doing it for financial gain would be keen to reoffend. What do you hope to see change in the industry and this aspect of the criminal justice? the system in the coming years?

Oh, gosh. I mean, funding is always the big issue, right? I mean, just like having an efficient wildlife agents at our ports to deal with these issues, like having specialized environmental, you know, courts or judges or prosecutors that are skilled in these issues. And again, that does exist to a degree now. But like, amplifying that. having more money to train our judges, our prosecutors, our general public, all of that is just

such a big thing that needs to change. And I think once we start really prosecuting these cases effectively and being able to talk about them and get them into the media and share these stories with people, hopefully we'll, you know, we'll see it hit home with people and we'll see less environmental and wildlife crime in general and we'll be able to like live and interact with our world more sustainably. Like there's so many sustainable solutions today. And it's also it's just a matter of money of like how much money does it cost for a company to transfer over, you know, to shift over to sustainable solution from like the wild solution or how do we end up moving a community in like Niger from, you know, illegally extracting oil and pollution.

their entire ecosystem. Like how do we move that community to like a sustainable energy resource slash, I mean, they're selling the oil. So like a sustainable economy for them. It's all at the end of the day, like this giant web of like social desirability of like what's cool to care about and what we with everything that's going on, like what we have the space in our brains to actually care about on any given day. Yeah, and just like showing support to these places. And I mean like being able to donate and like fundraise for again like boots and socks. Like that's a that's a huge thing. Being able to donate like little shitty like codec cameras that mean the world. Like for us are like what are you using that camera from like 1990 to them like that's the perfect camera to just throw in their backpack and use to document a crime scene. Like they need that stuff. They need like fingerprinting kits. Like they need so.

much stuff in the field that these parks are just under-resourced. So just like educating people just like being more aware about it. Like going, if you do go to a zoo, like really think about, you know, what you can learn from your experience. If you go to national parks, like what an ethical interaction with wildlife is. And I mean, the National Park Service is hysterical on like Twitter and Instagram. They've got some really funny social media people of like guiding you through what and what not to do in national parks and all that stuff. But yeah, just thinking about our interaction with the natural world and like how to be a good person at the end of the day and like not be hurting animals and hurting, you know, populations and sustainability moving forward

for us on the planet. Well, Professor Ra, I appreciate you coming on the show today. This is great. It was such a different perspective than what we're used to on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure just again being able to talk about these issues and hopefully shed a little bit more awareness and hopefully some excitement about these issues. Sign up for, you know, fun classes or listen to fun podcasts or whatever it is. Get more into it. Let us know if your neighbors have a gorilla or a tiger in their backyard. And yeah, just keep on learning about it and sharing the wealth of knowledge.