Illegal wildlife trade is booming. What does that mean for the confiscated animals?

In the back of an office building in Torrance, CA there is a small room that smells like rotting strawberries. There, a criminal investigator watches his evidence crawl around on wood chips in five open plastic tanks.

The box turtles, native to eastern North America, were found at a nearby international mail facility in Los Angeles about a week prior, packaged in a series of boxes bound for Asia.

The 40-some box turtles were being illegally exported.

Now, not only are they evidence of the crime — they are also its victims. Distressed, possibly sick and half a continent away from a home they'll likely never see again, the turtles need specialized care and a long-term home.

They're just one example of a much larger problem.

Wildlife trafficking is one of the largest and most profitable crime sectors in the world. The illegal trade is estimated to be a multi-billion dollar industry.

On a high level, that illegal trade causes problems for everything from global biodiversity to local economies to the balance of entire ecosystems. And on an immediate level, authorities are tasked with caring for confiscated animals and placing them in long-term care facilities.

One network launched last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Association for Zoos and Aquariums hopes to help. And with wildlife trafficking surging globally, the organizations are now in talks to expand the program to other parts of the country.

Read more about illegal wildlife trafficking and see more photos in climate correspondent Nate Rott's full story.

Have other wildlife stories you want us to cover? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

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This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact checked by Nate Root and Rachel Carlson. Gilly Moon was the audio engineer.