![]() ![]() That same day, two wildlife officers went to investigate further at Knox Farm. Weber, Getty ImagesĪfter the interview, the officers released the men without filing charges and set free the 31 squirrels, but they left the traps so they could watch for illegal activity. Later police analysis of Knox’s financial records and business transactions found that one of his biggest clients is a company in South Korea, where small, furry wild animals such as flying squirrels are becoming increasingly popular as pets. They were catching flying squirrels to sell to Rodney Knox, they said. Hargabus says the men acknowledged having 31 squirrels in the truck and that they’d placed about 350 traps on trees in the area. Nevertheless, they agreed to talk to Hargabus and two other officers without lawyers present. Wild flying squirrel trapping is a misdemeanor offense in Florida that can lead to a 60-day prison sentence, so Kenneth Lee Roebuck, 59, and Donald Lee Harrod, Jr., 49, were read their Miranda Rights, which include the right to remain silent. ![]() There were also many homemade squirrel traps, which can be mistaken for wooden bird houses. Pulling up behind a gold Ford F-150 truck with Florida plates, he saw two middle-aged men near the truck and a wire cage crowded with flying squirrels in the truck bed. Officer Wayne Hargabus was dispatched to the scene. The animals help renew forests by dispersing seeds in their feces, and they’re prey for raptors such as owls and racoons. and southeastern Canada, and although poaching hasn’t threatened the survival of the species, large-scale declines in the squirrels’ numbers could disrupt ecosystems. Southern flying squirrels are abundant throughout the eastern U.S. On January 15, 2019, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hotline received a report that people in a pickup truck were trapping flying squirrels in Rainbow Lakes, a subdivision in Marion County in central Florida. The investigation into the alleged flying squirrel poaching ring began with an anonymous complaint. “If it crawls or flies in Florida, and there’s a market for it, and it’s legal, I’ll catch it…and if I can’t, I’ll figure a way,” Knox told state wildlife officers during a scheduled inspection of his farm last year that was recorded on a police body camera. The case, authorities say, illustrates how legal, captive-breeding operations are used as a front for trading illegally trapped wild animals. “The illegal trade is like with narcotics and guns: If we don’t know it, we don’t know,” Gardner says. But the illegal trade may be much larger. Legal exports of flying squirrel from the U.S., however, are not particularly big business, says Neil Gardner, assistant special agent in charge of the U.S Fish and Wildlife’s Atlanta office, which oversees the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico. Five other men, including three who admitted to trapping squirrels and two alleged couriers, were also arrested and are awaiting trial.įlying squirrels have gained popularity as exotic pets, sold in the United States and abroad, despite the fact that they’re high-energy, nocturnal, wild animals. ![]() Through his lawyer, he declined to comment. ![]() Charged with racketeering, scheming to defraud, dealing in stolen property, and more, Knox is in jail awaiting trial and could face up to 30 years in prison. Seized financial documents and maps indicate that as many as 10,000 squirrel traps have been set in the state during the past five years in Florida, where it’s illegal to take them from the wild in almost all circumstances.Īt the center of the crime operation, they say, is Rodney Crendell Knox, the 66-year-old owner of Knox Farm, in Bushnell, Florida, a licensed breeding business for alligators, turtles, and flying squirrels. Yet the flying squirrels were in trouble.įlorida wildlife officials allege that the animals, which number somewhere in the tens of thousands in the state, are being poached from people’s backyards and funneled into the nation’s largest flying squirrel smuggling enterprise. Their chirps, often emitted at frequencies outside the range of human hearing, are easy to miss too. The squirrels sleep during the day, only emerging from their nests at dusk to glide-not actually fly-from tree to tree, covering up to 160 feet with each leap and executing magnificent loops and turns in pursuit of acorns and hickory nuts. Even after hundreds, then thousands, of the small, brown rodents started disappearing, many of their human neighbors didn’t suspect anything was wrong. Most people never noticed the flying squirrels in Florida’s woods. ![]()
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