Suppliers of Animals to S.D. Zoo Convicted

A couple have been convicted of scheming to illegally import and exploit endangered reptiles, including a rare species of iguana smuggled from Fiji, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Tom and Penny Crutchfield of Lake Panasoffkee operated Herpetafauna Inc., one of the largest and most successful import-export and wholesale businesses in the country, said U.S. Atty. Robert Genzman.

The business was a major supplier of exotic species of reptiles to private collectors, the San Diego Zoo and other zoos in Japan and western Europe.

Since 1985, the Crutchfields and Herpetafauna Inc. have supplied the San Diego Zoo with about 300 reptiles, said zoo spokesman Jeff Jouett. Zoo officials have cooperated with the authorities to make sure that all the zoo’s reptiles entered the country legally, Jouett said.

“Our records of transactions with Herpetafauna have been gone over with a fine tooth comb by Fish and Wildlife investigators, and there’s absolutely no problem with any animals that we acquired from Herpetafauna,” Jouett said.

The San Diego Zoo has the largest U.S. collection of Fiji iguanas because it received four males and four females from the Fiji government in 1986--a group that has since reproduced and now includes 32 reptiles. Because of San Diego’s large collection, authorities investigating the Crutchfields consulted with the zoo here as they tried to determine which reptiles had entered the country illegally, Jouett said.

Upon learning that the Crutchfields were convicted, San Diego Zoo officials decided they would no longer buy reptiles from the couple or their firm, Jouett said.

Genzman said the crimes involved violations of the federal Endangered Species Act and an international treaty designed to protect wildlife from commercial exploitation worldwide.

Crutchfield was convicted of conspiracy to smuggle four Fiji banded iguanas into the U.S. through a co-conspirator, Anson Wong, who operated from Penang, Malaysia, Genzman said. Wong is a fugitive.

The Fiji iguana, native to the islands of Fiji and Tonga in the South Pacific, is so endangered that the only specimens legally present in the U.S. are held in trust at the San Diego Zoo for the benefit of the government of the Fiji Islands, prosecutors said.

Each year, the zoo must give the Fiji government an accounting of the status of each animal and its progeny, if any. The zoo has 40 iguanas in trust, some of which have been placed on loan to other zoos.

Other animals illegally imported by the couple were species indigenous to India and Pakistan and protected under the international treaty.

Prosecutors said the species apparently had been transshipped from India and Pakistan to Penang, Malaysia, then exported to the Crutchfields for resale in the U.S.

Crutchfield faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. His wife could get a term of 10 years in prison.