#2536 - Eric Goode & Jermey McBride

Eric Goode and Jeremy McBride produced the HBO docu-series Monsters of God, covering the global reptile and wildlife trafficking trade, and previously made Chimp Crazy. Goode has kept reptiles for roughly 60 years, beginning with a tortoise at age six, and continued through his years running a New York nightclub in the 1980s and 1990s while socializing with figures including Madonna and Andy Warhol. The series took approximately 15 years to complete, with six years of intensive shooting, and involved more than 200 subjects including zoo directors, DEA agents, DOJ officials, US Fish and Wildlife inspectors, collectors, and major suppliers.

Illegal wildlife trafficking is approximately a 20 billion dollar per year industry, ranking behind only guns, drugs, and human trafficking. Goode notes that wildlife trafficking frequently converges with drug and gun smuggling because risk-tolerant individuals overlap across illegal trades. Traffickers have concealed cocaine in boa constrictors, hidden drugs inside fish at New York markets, and placed dangerous species such as spitting cobras at the top of animal crates to deter customs inspection. The Fish and Wildlife Service had limited inspectors at major ports of entry, which traffickers systematically exploited. Low sentencing for wildlife crime is a factor criminals weigh when calculating risk, with some expecting only eight months at a minimum-security facility in a worst-case scenario.

Anson Wong, based in Malaysia, is identified as the global kingpin of reptile smuggling and served the longest sentence in US history for wildlife crime at the time after being extradited from Mexico. Mario Tabrao was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for murder and drug offenses but served only 12 years, and Goode believes he provided significant information to authorities to secure early release. DEA agent Larry Lovelace, who put Tabrao in prison, was never informed of the reason for early release and now lives in a rural part of West Virginia sleeping with a gun in anticipation of retaliation. Komodo dragons entered the US illegally by being mixed with other monitor lizards because inspectors could not distinguish them, and Goode claims the Komodo dragon that bit Sharon Stone's husband at the Los Angeles Zoo was one of these smuggled animals.

The United States has 51 species of turtles and tortoises, more than any other country, making it a primary source for traffickers. Exporting native turtles from the US to Southeast Asia and Europe has become a significant trend only in the last ten years, and a single confiscated shipment was valued at approximately half a million dollars once it reached China. McBride estimates roughly 50 percent of US wildlife leaving the country illegally is marine life, with reptiles, especially turtles, making up the majority of the non-marine share. Only one person in Delaware coordinates nationwide placement of confiscated animals for US Fish and Wildlife. Turtles are easy to smuggle because they survive long periods without food or water, can be wrapped in socks and shipped in boxes, and wild-caught animals command higher prices than farm-raised ones because buyers believe wild turtles have eaten medicinal plants that increase their chi.

The plowshare tortoise is described as arguably the most valuable reptile in the pet trade, with some specimens worth as much as a hundred thousand dollars. The species functionally went extinct in northern Madagascar due to intense poaching, with most confiscated animals traced through a direct flight route from Madagascar to Bangkok. Goode spent approximately 20 years attempting to save the species in the wild and ultimately failed. His organization waited 15 years after obtaining confiscated animals before attempting a breeding program, and right as filming concluded, produced the first plowshare tortoise hatchling ever bred in the Western world. The golden coin turtle can sell for between twenty thousand and forty thousand dollars, with some buyers believing it can cure cancer. The Yunnan box turtle was thought extinct for over 50 years before being rediscovered and today could fetch between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand dollars.

Goode was bitten by a tiger rattlesnake while searching for snakes in mountains north of Los Angeles. He describes it as the most venomous rattlesnake in the country, carrying both hemotoxin and neurotoxin, producing neurotoxic symptoms similar to a cobra bite. He felt a metallic taste within 10 to 15 minutes, indicating it was not a dry bite, and about an hour later felt severe chest pressure as though sandbags were on him. He received 36 vials of antivenom, exhausting the hospital's supply and requiring transport from another facility. The antivenom at that time was made from horse antibodies and caused severe serum sickness lasting weeks. Goode says the traditional advice to cut, tourniquet, and suck out venom is completely wrong, as a rattlesnake injects venom like a hypodermic needle and immediately withdraws, making suction removal impossible. Coral snake antivenom is largely no longer produced in the US because manufacturers determined it was not cost-effective.

Goode argues that one in five reptile species is now threatened with extinction and the rate is accelerating, with the pet trade and smuggling as primary drivers. He contends that turtles and tortoises are among the most endangered groups of animals on the planet, comparable to primates when measured by the proportion facing extinction, yet attract far less public attention.