Macias, Martin Jr. (2019, November 21). California Man Found Guilty of Smuggling US Corals to Mexico. Retrieved February 23, 2020, from https://www.courthousenews.com/california-ma n-found-guilty-of-smuggling-u-s-corals-to-mexico/

 

A California resident attempted to send more than 40 boxes of live corals to a company in Mexico, many of which were protected by CITES, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. He was found guilty of filing false documents for the wildlife he intended to export, telling the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services that he was instead shipping 16 cartons of fish. He had been pressured by the company he was selling to to send them earlier, in January 2013, before the CITES permitting processes had been finalized, but was unable to. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. 

 

I think that this article was pretty interesting, as they don’t actually name his motives, or the company’s, in the text, instead, it just sort of implies that it was just for profit. But what if it wasn’t? It certainly wasn’t a good idea for him to go against the CITES agreement, and thus breaking the law, but I think that if they had explain his motives, the story would have been significantly clearer. It’s related to environmental science because it relates to endangered species, specifically those that are threatened by climate change.