LOZANO ORTEGA: So we had to flood one of the offices - put a lot of water on the floor. And the frogs - they're really particular. I'll be right there.ĪLCORN: And the first thing Ivan has to do is he's got to make these frogs comfortable. GONZALEZ: Ivan tells the police, meet me at the rescue center. We - at that time, we were young, and these challenges were enriching, you know? We were like, it's going to hurt, but we are going to do our best. LOZANO ORTEGA: No, I just thought to myself. We were not really expecting that.ĪLCORN: Did you say, no, we can't do that? Like, what did you say back? LOZANO ORTEGA: So it was, like, mind-blowing. They kind of look like they're permanently wet - and, yeah, poisonous. GONZALEZ: Most of them were a type of frog called Oophaga lehmanni. And I was like, oh, my God, those are poison frogs. They're very - they have very bright colors and stuff like that. LOZANO ORTEGA: And I was like - what? 400? What kind of frogs? They say, oh, those ones that are really, really nice and good looking. The police told them there were, like, 400. I mean, it's easy to feed a bear.ĪLCORN: But they weren't prepared, apparently, for frogs. And they were kind of like, OK, yeah, sure, we can handle a bear. GONZALEZ: Yeah, they'd get turtles, monkeys - one time, they even got a bear. LOZANO ORTEGA: We were used to receive a monkey, a parrot and a turtle per day. It was, like, this exotic animal orphanage where people would send animals that somebody, for some reason, had taken out of the wild. I'm with the police, and we just found a bag full of frogs.ĪLCORN: The reason they called Ivan is that Ivan was in charge of Bogota's Wildlife Rescue Center. IVAN LOZANO ORTEGA: We are calling from the Bogota International Airport. Ivan Lozano Ortega is at his house in Bogota, Colombia, and he's getting ready to go to sleep when he gets a call. It was around 9:30 at night on a Sunday in 1998. SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: This is PLANET MONEY from NPR. ![]() Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at /planetmoney. It was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Emma Peaslee. This episode was hosted by Stan Alcorn and Sarah Gonzalez, and co-reported and written with Charlotte de Beauvoir. ![]() And he learns that it's not so easy to get a frog out of hot water. Today on the show, how Ivan tried to put an end to the poison frog black market, by breeding and selling frogs legally. And it put these endangered frogs at risk of going extinct. Tens of thousands of frogs were being poached out of the Colombian rainforest and sold to collectors all around the world by smugglers. Ivan had stumbled upon the poisonous frog black market. Hundreds of brightly colored, poisonous frogs. And he kept getting calls from the airport to come deal with. How lab breeding could put an end to frog smuggling : Planet Money Back in the 90s, Ivan Lozano Ortega was in charge of Bogota's wildlife rescue center.
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