Why do people illegally smuggle birds or poultry products?
Mr. Marra: People like their pets. There’s this huge underground pet network where they go to these swap meets and they swap reptiles and all sorts of weird exotic birds. The more rare it is, the higher the price on the animal’s head, unfortunately. And a lot of these animals are coming from H5N1 countries and they’re brought into the U.S. There’s just his really weird subculture of people out there that really like their exotic pets, and they’ll do anything they can to get them…that’s what I’m most worried about.
