<\/p>\n
Dave Prival picks his way across a tumbledown slope, carefully peering into crevices among the broken rocks.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re alpine-high on a southern Arizona mountain range that shall remain nameless, for reasons you\u2019ll soon understand.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been another year of crackly drought, and wildlife is feeling the heat. That includes the twin-spotted rattlesnakes that Prival and his small crew of fellow herpetologists have been catching, measuring and marking each July for the past 18 years. The snakes are drawn to this vast scree patch by their primary prey, Yarrow\u2019s spiny lizards, which dart before us in flashes of green. Although the lizards are abundant, the snakes have experienced a slow but undeniable decline.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, sensing movement, the scientist drops to a squat. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light. But it could have been a twin-spot: \u201cAs soon as they see you, they dive,\u201d he explains with a sigh, adjusting the leather welder\u2019s gloves needed for catching venomous snakes without becoming a statistic. He looks around, to see if anyone\u2019s watching.<\/p>\n
Western twin-spotteds are hardly the biggest rattlers, barely two feet long and thin as a thumb. But they\u2019re pretty, with parallel, rust-colored dots trailing down their backs, and sleek, almond-shaped heads, and that makes them highly prized among collectors. As does the fact that taking them is prohibited by Arizona law. On popular internet reptile-trading sites such as kingsnake.com, a prime twin-spot can easily fetch $1,500.<\/p>\n
And snake poachers know about Prival\u2019s long-running research locations. As a result, his crew spends much of its field time chasing off guys who lurk around with snake hooks and canvas bags. \u201cEveryone will say they just want to photograph the snakes,\u201d Prival says. \u201cSo I\u2019ll say to them, \u2018Hey, this is a protected species. Can you leave your collecting gear in the trunk?\u2019 But some people, when they think I\u2019m not looking, will go take the gear back out of their trunk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Occasionally, his team even inadvertently helps the thieves. \u201cSometimes a snake will get away from us, and now we\u2019ve shown them where a snake is,\u201d he says. \u201cIt makes it pretty stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The twin-spot\u2019s range is limited to a few high mountains in southern Arizona and northern Mexico, and climate change has already taken a toll. Less rain means fewer spiny lizards to eat, while rising temperatures force the snakes to move higher up. Now that they\u2019ve reached top elevations, there\u2019s nowhere else for them to go. Prival\u2019s research population probably took another hit from the enormous Horseshoe Fire in 2011. He estimates that perhaps 70 twin-spotteds still dwell on this slope, down from an estimated 86 in 2009. Poaching is only making it worse. \u201cIf just seven of those snakes are taken by poachers,\u201d he says, \u201cthat\u2019s 10 percent of the population right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although collecting twin-spotted rattlesnakes is illegal in Arizona \u2014 and a federal law called the Lacey Act prohibits buying and selling protected wildlife \u2014 there\u2019s little chance that thieves will be caught. Even if they are, they likely won\u2019t pay more than a few hundred dollars in fines. For commercial dealers, who can earn thousands from a single animal, that\u2019s simply part of business overhead. Meanwhile, the difficult task of proving that a snake was poached falls upon the authorities.<\/p>\n
Nor are twin-spotted rattlesnakes the only targets. Arizona boasts 107 species of native reptiles \u2014 49 lizards, six turtles and 52 snakes. Eleven of them, including highly coveted Gila monsters and Arizona ridge-nosed rattlesnakes, are protected by state law, arguably driving up the price and adding to their allure.<\/p>\n
Internationally, the black market in wildlife is a multibillion-dollar industry, believed to rank only below drug trafficking in the amount of the money it generates. In turn, the illegal reptile trade may be second only to habitat loss as the greatest threat to species survival. It is a thriving subculture, with the animals sold online, at herp shows and, covertly, in shops. That provides a strong motivation to replenish inventories with poaching junkets to the Southwest.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouthern Arizona is a hotbed for that kind of activity, especially with the montane snakes,\u201d says Joshua Hurst, director of the Arizona Game and Fish Department\u2019s Operation Game Thief. But no one knows just how many reptiles are being snatched each year. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those unknown things,\u201d Hurst says. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a clue.\u201d<\/p>\n
And bringing poachers to justice is a heartbreaking challenge. \u201cThe amount of effort it takes to catch somebody doing that is unbelievable,\u201d he says. \u201cWe change our tactics, and they change their tactics.\u201d Ploys have included the use of decoy Gila monsters, chilled down to immobilize them and placed beside roads frequented by nighttime thieves. \u201cThen the poachers became privy to that,\u201d he says. \u201cThey reach down and touch the (Gila monsters) to see if they\u2019re cool or not. If they are cold, the poachers just get away from it and leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thieves often place stolen reptiles in ice chests and stash them in motel rooms or even roadside shrubbery for later retrieval. Sometimes, newly caught animals are quickly handed off to inconspicuous associates, perhaps an innocent-looking family driving down the road.<\/p>\n
Still, from July 31, 2013, to Oct. 13, 2016, a 16-member Game and Fish team wrote 31 citations for illegal reptile taking in southern Arizona\u2019s poaching hotspots. While that may not sound like much, Hurst notes that each citation can contain a fistful of violations, raising the stakes for thieves. Oftentimes, the cases are simply resolved with fines and never make it to court.<\/p>\n
It helps when the federal government gets involved. Unfortunately, that\u2019s not often: Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for Arizona, couldn\u2019t recall a single reptile case prosecuted by his office. And a Freedom of Information request to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revealed only a single illegal-take violation for all species of wildlife over the past three years across the Western states, including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada and Colorado. But that case involved a violation of the Endangered Species Act, rather than the Lacey Act.<\/p>\n
Gene Elms is law enforcement branch chief for Arizona Game and Fish. When asked about the dealer\u2019s assertions, he pauses. \u201cIf they are collected illegally, that label follows them throughout all the states,\u201d he says. \u201cBut this shows the difficulty of tracing the trajectory of these reptiles, and proving that the person who is actually in possession of them knew they were stolen.\u201d Another complication comes with the patchwork of state laws across the nation, which are often more lax than those in Arizona.<\/p>\n
There lies the rub: The nation is a m\u00e9lange of reptile regulations, and poachers know them intimately. They also understand that once they make it out of one state, like Arizona, they\u2019re not likely to see that state\u2019s laws enforced anywhere else. To bring states\u2019 laws more into sync, the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity has started a campaign to clamp down on the rampant turtle trade. That could spark more consistent protections for all reptiles, according to the center\u2019s herpetofauna attorney, Collette Adkins. \u201cIt\u2019s slowly becoming a domino effect,\u201d she says. \u201cMany states are beginning to restrict the sale of native reptiles, and those states are now putting pressure on other states that don\u2019t have the same -protections.\u201d<\/p>\n
International enforcement is even spottier. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that some 9 million herps (reptiles and amphibians) are exported annually from the United States. But only a small number of species are regulated by a global accord called the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna. They don\u2019t include the twin-spotted rattlesnake.<\/p>\n
Even in Arizona, state prosecutors rarely take up poaching cases. And when they do, judges are often blas\u00e9. \u201cWe try to educate the courts,\u201d says Gabriel Paz, Game and Fish\u2019s law enforcement program manager for southeastern Arizona. \u201cBut all of our cases in recent history were misdemeanors.\u201d Misdemeanors don\u2019t get much attention on crowded court dockets \u2014 a fact professional reptile thieves count on.<\/p>\n
But this may be starting to change. In 2012, southern Arizona welcomed the nation\u2019s first Animal Welfare Court, designed to adjudicate animal abuse and wildlife cases. While the court has yet to hear a poaching case, game officials hope to use it as a future tool. \u201cWe do what we can under the state statutes,\u201d says Judge Maria Felix, who oversees the Pima County court. \u201cBut until the state Legislature finds a reason to change them, it\u2019s not going to be taken seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, there have been some victories, such as when a dealer was nabbed with one of Dave Prival\u2019s twin-spotted rattlesnakes in 2006. On the dealer\u2019s internet ad, the snake\u2019s tell-tale research markings \u2014 each rattle segment is painted a different color \u2014 were still visible, proving conclusively that the reptile had been illegally taken in Arizona. It was, however, a bittersweet triumph: The South Carolina dealer faced a mere $525 fine. The snake was eventually returned to Arizona, where the Game and Fish Department used it as a public-education tool.<\/p>\n
Prival believes that only tougher federal laws, such as one prohibiting the sale of any live wildlife \u2014 along with more money for enforcement and education \u2014 will significantly reduce the illegal reptile trade. In the meantime, he says, the occasional bust can have a ripple effect. \u201cThe collecting community is pretty tight-knit, and when you catch somebody, they hear about that sort of thing. So if you catch enough people that it becomes a hassle, collectors may say, \u2018Well, Arizona is not a good place to go.\u2019 I think that really is the hope.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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