Wildlife smuggling poses challenge to inspectors

By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
El Paso Times
Article Launched:03/27/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT

In one evidence room at the Bridge of the Americas, one can find a pair of seized boots with the tips made from the fuzzy, spotted fur of an ocelot. There are boots made of stingray dyed with tiger stripes and belt buckles fashioned with the heads of dwarf crocodiles.

"We see some hideous things," quipped Rudolph Fajardo Jr., an inspector with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in El Paso.

Fajardo's office is small, with only two other inspectors and a special agent, but it is responsible for regulating the import of all wildlife and wildlife parts. In El Paso, this means keeping an eye on exotic skins and exotic boots.

Some of the skins belong to endangered or protected species, such as sea turtles, pangolins and some crocodiles.

The office works with 20 brokers who bring in skins from Malaysia and Africa. The inspectors clear 300 to 1,000 pairs of imported boots a week and up to two tons of skins a month, they said.

They also seize 40 to 60 pairs of smuggled boots a month.