- California has become a wildlife trafficking hotspot in the U.S., with a notable spike in live animals smuggled across the southern border to be sold as pets, from monkeys and exotic birds to venomous snakes.
- The state has three high-traffic border crossings with Mexico and millions of tons of cargo shipped through some of the nation’s busiest airports and seaports. With limited staff, resource-strapped agencies face serious challenges in policing the illegal import of protected plants and animals into California.
- Poachers also target California’s native plants and reptiles, threatening local species. Meanwhile, some imported animals get loose and become invasive species that destroy ecosystems or may carry diseases, creating public health risks.
- As traffickers exploit new technologies and follow market demand for different animals, enforcement officials struggle to control the influx of illegally traded species.
In October, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at California’s Otay Mesa border crossing noticed an odd bulge inside a man’s pants. Jesse Agus Martinez, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana, repeatedly claimed the bump was “pirrin,” a Spanish word for penis. His history of smuggling birds into the U.S. prompted further examination, and the officer found two brown sacks hidden in his underwear. Each contained an unconscious, heavily sedated orange-fronted parakeet (Eupsittula canicularis). He was indicted by a grand jury on November 14 for illegally importing the birds — a protected species native to Mexico and Costa Rica.
Earlier that month, investigators with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) uncovered an alleged illegal trafficking operation dealing in rare animal parts that was linked to an unnamed Los Angeles-based business. Officials seized thousands of elephant ivory pieces, nine rhino horns, several carved tusks and a sea turtle shell, which will be analyzed at the department’s Wildlife Forensics Lab. As of publication, no arrests have been made.
These incidents offer a glimpse into the range of wildlife flowing illegally into the state: birds, mammals, reptiles and invertebrates.
“The recent trends in illegal wildlife trafficking into California show a marked rise in the smuggling of live, high-value species protected under CITES and the Endangered Species Act,” said Denise Larison, acting regional supervisor for wildlife inspection at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). “The top three right now that we’re seeing in California [are] live reptiles, live corals … and also live birds.”
Smuggled alive
Live animals are a big part of the wildlife trade. In July, customs agents caught a California resident, Carlos Abundez of San Ysidro, smuggling 14 keel-billed toucans (Ramphastos sulfuratus) into the state from Mexico, also at the Otay Mesa crossing. Alerted by a sniffer dog, agents found the young birds sedated, bound and crammed inside the dashboard. They were injured. Their tails were smashed and one had a broken leg.
Two months before that, in May, authorities intercepted 17 exotic baby parrots entering California at the San Ysidro crossing. The tiny birds were stuffed in bags and tossed under a car seat. Two of these red-lored amazon parrot (Amazona autumnalis) chicks perished in transit.
“California continues to be a hotspot for wildlife trafficking, particularly for live animals,” said Danielle Kessler, U.S. director for the nonprofit International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), who has worked for more than a decade on this issue. “Our understanding is that it is largely for the pet trade.”
Many of these species — smuggled dead or alive — are protected under CITES, an international wildlife trade agreement signed by 184 nations and the European Union, as well as the Endangered Species Act, a U.S. federal regulation that prevents the import, export or sale of imperiled species.
As with any illegal activity, the true scale of wildlife trafficking is impossible to gauge. But seizure records show that there is substantial illegal trade in elephant ivory, pangolin scales, exotic boots and other leather products, as well as ingredients from rare species used in traditional Chinese and Asian medicines, such as bear bile and tiger bone.
In recent years, the U.S. has seen unprecedented demand for live wildlife, and two of California’s ports — Los Angeles and San Francisco — stand out with the most wildlife seizures. However, enforcing wildlife laws is a mammoth task, since the U.S is one of the largest importers of wildlife products. Nearly 2.9 billion individual animals belonging to 30,000 species have been legally imported into the country since 2000.
Meanwhile, enforcement agents have a nearly impossible task in trying to stop the influx of trafficked wildlife amidst millions of tons of cargo coming into the U.S. through airports, ports and across borders.
New trends in wildlife trafficking into California
Federal wildlife officials seized 48,793 live animals at the border between 2015 and 2019 — averaging about 27 per day — according to a recent report by the U.S.-based nonprofit Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Aquatic animals, including corals, fish, crustaceans, mollusks, amphibians and turtles topped the list of those most seized, while live reptiles were the most confiscated by number of cases.
Data for subsequent years isn’t publicly available, but AZA told Mongabay there has been a staggering 50% increase from the previous report. USFWS seized 72,989 live animals at the border from 2019 through June 2025. Some 26,296 animals — nearly a third — were protected species, it said.
There’s been a concerning shift in what’s coming in. “We’re seeing an increase of primate trafficking, and in particular, Mexican spider monkeys,” said Sara Walker, senior adviser for wildlife trafficking at AZA.
One example is an incident that occurred in January 2025, when California Highway Patrol officers pulled over a speeding Rolls-Royce and discovered a 1-month-old spider monkey wearing a onesie in the car. The driver, Ali Mused Adel Mohamed, was arrested, and the monkey, nicknamed “Marcel,” is now being cared for at the Oakland Zoo.
Then, in May, Solano County deputies arrested 50-year-old Clifford Vincenty in Vallejo, California, after finding methamphetamine in his vehicle, and charged him with possession of a controlled substance. When police arrived at his home with a search warrant the next day, they found drugs, cash, and exotic animals: a baby spider monkey and two live rattlesnakes that were moved to the Oakland Zoo.
This, Walker said, is new. “In that first five-year data analysis [2015-19], we had very few mammals at all, and I can tell you that none of those were primates.”
The dark fate of pet monkeys
Nathan Smith, chief of the CDFW’s wildlife trafficking unit, blames social media for fueling the demand for exotic primates, including spider monkeys, with influencers posting pictures with their spider monkeys and other exotic pets.
Behind the glitz of social media fame lies a ghastly truth: Traffickers kill an entire troop before stealing baby spider monkeys from their fiercely protective mothers. Then they’re transported under what Walker calls “heartbreaking” conditions.” Poachers stuff these infants in bags and suitcases before smuggling them into the U.S. in cars or by plane.
“They’re scared, they’re tiny. You can tell they’re malnourished,” Walker said.
When they end up in people’s homes as pets, they are doomed for a life of abuse and neglect. Dressed in diapers like human babies, they are fed the wrong food — often just bananas — and rarely receive proper veterinary care. Many don’t survive long.
“It’s really tragic — the plight of the spider monkeys as they come into the U.S. and what happens to them,” Smith said.
Wildlife: a lucrative commodity
For decades, illegal wildlife trade has been among the world’s largest criminal activities. It’s a lucrative enterprise, worth an estimated $20 billion each year, according to Interpol. This trade is often run by international syndicates, entwined with other illegal activities: gun, drug and human trafficking.
Smith confirmed that this is often the case in California. “We do find [animals] hand in hand being trafficked with narcotics,” he said.
Authorities have also seen an increase in live parrots, macaws and other protected neotropical birds smuggled from South and Central America into California. It’s more common during the spring, when eggs and young birds are plentiful: They can be smuggled easily compared with adult birds. To evade detection, the chicks are sedated and their wings taped so they don’t make noise and attract attention.
Walker has observed their perilous journey firsthand. “We’re seeing an uptick in neonatal birds. They’re coming in younger and younger,” she said, adding that some are just babies and don’t even have their feathers yet.
“[It’s] heartbreaking because they’re so young and they’re in such rough shape. Their immune systems are so weak, and the transport conditions are so horrific for these trafficked animals, that we see a very high mortality rate with birds.”
Live turtles, lizards and snakes are also coming into California in huge numbers, including growing numbers of venomous king cobras (Ophiophagus hannah), rattlesnakes, tree vipers and spitting vipers. Smith said the demand for these snakes has increased over the last eight years. California also serves as a transit hub for turtles, which are then shipped to Southeast Asia, where they are both eaten and kept as pets.
But it’s not just charismatic animals that are flowing into the state. California also has a booming invertebrate trade. There’s a long list of desired species: praying mantises, tarantulas, Hercules beetles (Dynastes hercules), live corals and Chinese mitten crabs (Eriocheir sinensis), to name a few. They are shipped in huge numbers, often via overnight carriers, according to Larison. She noted that her agency saw this method take off during the pandemic, when other ways of smuggling came to a halt.
California has also seen an increase in sea cucumber trafficking from Mexico and other parts of South and Central America. They are dried and sent to Southeast Asia, where they are a pricey culinary delicacy. A 2022 study found that between 2011 and 2021, U.S. and Mexican authorities seized more than 100 tons of sea cucumbers, valued at an estimated $29.5 million, though many species are protected under CITES.
A hotspot for wildlife trade
California is the most populous state in the U.S. and the world’s fourth-largest economy. Movement of people and goods is massive, making it easy for traffickers to smuggle wildlife.
Los Angeles hosts one of the nation’s busiest airports: Nearly 1,500 flights touch ground and take off every day. Then there are the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, regional hubs for international shipping and two of the busiest ports in the nation. More than 100 million tons of cargo, worth some $400 billion, entered and left the country in 2023 through these ports. One of the country’s four international postal facilities is also in California.
US Fish and Wildlife Service personnel are tasked with inspecting imports at airports and ports nationwide. One reason why enforcement is so difficult is the sheer volume of cargo coming into the state: “It’s pretty busy here,” Larison said.
But the agency is also severely understaffed and underfunded, Walker said. “It’s astonishing how few inspectors and agents they have compared to what is coming in. … We need more inspectors. We need more agents,” she said. The situation could worsen substantially with passage of the 2026 budget: It requests a 33% cut to the USFWS.
There were just 215 special agents and 113 wildlife inspectors on the job in 2019, according to the Office of Law Enforcement’s 2019 report, the latest available. Those numbers may have dropped due to the Trump administration’s layoffs: In February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fired about 5% of its workforce, about 420 employees and more layoffs may be pending.
The state also shares a 3,145 kilometer-long (1,954 mile-long) border with Mexico. More than a million commercial trucks crossed the border at Otay Mesa in 2023, and more than 15 million cars entered the state at San Ysidro — the busiest border crossing in the U.S.
“So we’ve got a lot of land sitting underneath us with a lot of wildlife, and it all comes up through the southern border,” Walker said.
How wildlife trafficking harms California’s biodiversity
Conversations about wildlife trafficking often revolve around the impact on high-demand species, but smuggled animals also pose a huge risk to both ecosystems and public health. As a global biodiversity hotspot, home to more than 7,500 species — many of them endemic, living here and nowhere else — California is especially at risk.
Many exotic birds brought into the state as pets have escaped or were released, settling in as invasive species that outcompete and threaten natives. The red-whiskered bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus), an Asian songbird, and a few species of neotropical parrots are on that list.
Chinese mitten crabs, named for their hairy, mitten-like claws, are usually smuggled live during the Chinese New Year. They have inflicted catastrophic damage on California’s freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and infrastructure. This crab outcompetes native species for food and may spread disease: It eats fish eggs and destroys dykes, levees and riverbanks by burrowing around infrastructure.
A recent study found that many of the live animals that are legally imported into the U.S., including venomous reptiles and fish, have a high risk of becoming invasive.
Lieutenant Logan Garber, an enforcement officer with CDFW, gave another example. The non-native Caulerpa algae, used in the aquarium trade for filtering water, has invaded both Newport Bay and San Diego Bay, carpeting the seafloor and smothering native seagrasses which act as the ocean’s fish nurseries. It cost millions of dollars to clean it up, Garber said. Divers had to physically pick up every plant from the bottom. He marveled that “something that small could cause so much environmental damage.”
“The invasive species are probably our biggest, most significant concern, whether that be snails [or] quagga mussels, invasive species of that nature,” his colleague Smith added.
Trafficked animals sometimes carry pathogens that both native wildlife and humans may have no resistance to, passing zoonotic diseases that jump between wildlife, livestock and humans. Turtles have a high risk of carrying the infectious Salmonella bacteria, which causes severe intestinal issues in humans. Birds can spread deadly avian flu among wild populations, poultry and a wide range of mammals.
Since California is rich in wildlife, some of its own species are targeted by poachers. Plant thieves have targeted Dudleya succulents, trendy houseplants that are particularly popular in Asia. One perpetrator, 46-year-old South Korean national Byungsu Kim, was busted with some 3,700 dudleya plants he stole from California’s state parks worth up to $600,000. He may be one of the world’s most notorious houseplant poachers.
Various cacti, orchids and other rare plants are also smuggled for the ornamental plant trade. From 2015 to 2020, USFWS intercepted approximately 2,000 individual cacti. That number quadrupled to more than 8,000 during the following five years, according to USFWS data.
“These particular cacti species are very, very slow-growing species, so it’s challenging to grow them in a lab setting,” Larison from USFWS said, adding that traffickers instead “pluck them from the border.”
California reptiles, including desert tortoises and rattlesnakes, such as sidewinders, are also frequent trafficking victims.
What we don’t know about California’s wildlife black market
As with most criminal activity, precise data about the scale of trafficking are unavailable. What we do know comes from seizure data, which can be interpreted in various ways. A higher number of incidents may mean that trafficking is on the rise. But on the other hand, better enforcement also yields more seizures, making it tricky to interpret the data.
Besides, criminals are always shifting routes, trading different species, alive and in parts, and innovating new methods to smuggle them. “There’s a lot of effort taken by traffickers to make sure that the animals are not detectable,” Kessler from IFAW said, adding that live animals are more easily discovered than wildlife products. “So it’s kind of hard to compare what is seized versus what is actually coming over [the border].”
Authorities also don’t know what percentage of the cross-border trade includes live animals. Most live animals are thought to come from South and Central America, but their exact origin and intended destination are often unknown. Data are sketchy, since animals are often smuggled along circuitous routes.
Despite social media platforms’ policies banning wildlife trade, animals are increasingly sold online. Tracking these sales is difficult, especially when they happen over closed Facebook groups, Kessler said. “If you’re looking at online sales, a lot of times, sellers will offer them for sale across state lines.” Interstate transport or trade of endangered species without permits is illegal in the U.S.
What authorities are doing about wildlife trafficking
California’s high volume of wildlife seizures inspired the launch of the Wildlife Confiscations Network in 2023 — a first-of-its-kind coalition of trusted animal care facilities. The network has already placed more than 4,600 animals into quality care, including more than 100 spider monkeys, in Southern California.
“It’s really a crisis-driven response,” Walker from AZA said, adding that it stemmed from authorities’ recognition that seized wildlife usually need immediate, expert attention. “Knowing that they have support for care and placement allows [authorities] … to seize no matter what the taxa is, how many there are, what time of day it is,” Walker said.
The network is a pilot program, and lawmakers are pushing to expand it nationwide with a bill, the Wildlife Confiscations Network Act of 2025, that was introduced in May but has not yet come up for a vote. If passed, it will appropriate $5 million yearly through 2030 to establish and operate animal care facilities across the U.S.
The USFWS, for its part, runs periodic, focused operations targeting specific species or trends, which means the agency must keep up with technology and social media, Larison noted. For instance, when Chinese mitten crab smuggling became a troubling pattern, the agency launched Operation Mitten Catcher and prevented the import of more than 15,000 crabs.
In addition to collaborations with customs agents, the USFWS also works with inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state agencies to combat trafficking. “The more eyes that you have in the field, the more ears that you have in the field, the more knowledge that you have in the field, the more effective you can be,” Larison said.
In California, lawmakers proposed an amendment to the California Fish and Game Code to make it illegal to sell or trade wildlife that is procured illegally in its source country, similar to the Lacey Act, a federal law that prohibits the import, trade, transport and sale of any wildlife taken illegally anywhere in the world. The California initiative was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom in fall 2025 and goes into effect in January.
CDFW is also trying to persuade attorneys in California to impose stronger penalties for wildlife traffickers under state laws. In one high-profile case prosecuted in March 2025, three offenders were fined between $605 and $1,865 after being caught with a green sea turtle skull, several taxidermied mountain lions, a wolverine, a ringtail cat and owl parts — all protected under California law — and illegally harvested deer. This ruling fell exponentially short of the maximum federal penalty for wildlife trafficking: 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Organizations such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global conservation agency, have recognized that the wildlife pet trade is a “major threat” to conservation and must be stopped. In its 2025 World Conservation Congress, where conservationists, experts and decisionmakers gather every four years, IUCN passed a motion calling on countries to develop global guidelines to manage the out-of-control pet trade in wild species.
To address the trade in spider monkeys and other nonhuman primates, the Captive Primate Public Safety Act was introduced into the U.S. Senate in April 2024. The stalled bill would have banned private ownership of all primates nationwide.
How can the public help?
One crucial way to combat wildlife trafficking is by reducing demand: The public can play a big role by not buying exotic pets, such as spider monkeys and other primates, experts say.
“There’s no world in which a baby spider monkey needs to be adopted,” Walker said. “It’s not legitimate. It’s not adoption. It’s murder and trafficking.”
While scrolling through videos of monkeys or tarantulas on social media might be fascinating, it can inadvertently fuel the trafficking problem. “Don’t ‘like’ and ‘follow’ that person that has the illegal animal,” Smith said. “The more following they get, the more advertising they get, the more it creates that demand for that animal.”
The public can also help authorities by being watchful of what they see around them, and if something seems off, calling the CALTIP hotline to report concerning activity.
With rapidly shifting trends in wildlife trafficking — and traffickers using technology to outsmart authorities — it’s a constant challenge for law enforcement. “It’s kind of whack-a-mole,” Smith said. Traffickers quickly move on from one species to another to stay in business, and officers must be vigilant to discover the next species on their list. “Our officers [must] be extremely resilient.”
Banner image: A juvenile orange-fronted parakeet seized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in California. Image by Rebecca Fabbri/USFWS.
Spoorthy Raman is a staff writer at Mongabay, covering all things wild with a special focus on lesser-known wildlife, the wildlife trade and environmental crime.
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