The 1970s heyday of the illegal reptile trade was about as weird and dangerous as it gets, something Casper resident Dominic Domenici knows all about because he helped bust it when he was a federal wildlife agent.
At one point during an undercover operation, he was with a suspect in a Subaru crammed full of sacks of snakes when the ties on one of the sacks came loose.
“I reached down beside me to get a snack, and I felt a snake,” he told Cowboy State Daily. "I thought to myself, ‘Gee, I hope that’s one of the friendly ones.’"
It wasn’t. The slithering escapee turned out to be a coral snake, a venomous species.
“We wound up spending quite a while with flashlights trying to find it and recapture it,” Domenici said.
Luckily, the episode ended with the snake back in the sack and nobody bitten. Eventually, Domenici made his case and the suspect was busted.
From New Mexico, To Utah, Then Wyoming
Domenici started his career as a game warden with the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, where he was involved in undercover operations trying to break up the then-lucrative black market reptile trade.
That including taking Gila monsters and other exotic reptiles to bars to make deals.
He later became a federal game warden with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) serving in Utah. He transferred to Wyoming to cover the Wyoming-Montana area in the mid-1990s. That was just in time for the controversial reintroduction of wolves.
He retired from FWS in 2009. He said that, to his knowledge, the international black market for rare wildlife and wildlife parts is still rampant.
A Wyoming man and retired federal game warden helped bust the bizarre 1970s heyday of America's illegal reptile trade by taking venomous Gila monsters to the bar. That includes a shady dealer who was bitten by one and “drank tequila until he felt better.” (Getty Images) 
A Wyoming man and retired federal game warden helped bust the bizarre 1970s heyday of America's illegal reptile trade by taking venomous Gila monsters to the bar. That includes a shady dealer who was bitten by one and “drank tequila until he felt better.” (Getty Images)
‘He Sat And Drank Tequila Until He Felt Better’
When he started his career, there was a huge demand in Europe for American reptiles, such as rattlesnakes, gray-banded king snakes and Gila monsters.
The best method of getting snakes was to drive the highways at night looking for snakes that slithered on to the asphalt to soak up the heat, he said.
There were a lot of folks out and about in those days looking for snakes, Domenici said.
Some people would try to fake their competition out by tossing sections of garden hose, striped with duct tape, onto the highways, he said.
From a vehicle, those looked enough like king snakes to prompt some folks to stop.
Then the people who set out the fake snakes, “would pass you and get ahead of you, so they would have the first chance at the next real snake,” he said.
Back then, a Gila monster could fetch $1,000 to $1,200 on the black market. Quite a hefty sum in 1970s dollars.
Dealers would snag as many as they could in the deserts of New Mexico and in neighboring Texas, Domenici said.
The work was dangerous, and the fierce competition drove dealers to take risks.
Domenici recalled one dealer was bitten by a Gila monster, and Gila monster venom is no joke. In 2024, a Colorado man died after being bitten by his pet Gila monster.
But the dealer who was bitten didn’t even seek medical help.
“He sat and drank tequila until he felt better,” Domenici said.
The man was apparently lucky, because while Gila monsters have nasty teeth, they’re not particularly efficient at injecting their venom, he said.
“They have teeth, much like a large trout, and then glands that secrete the venom. The venom is fairly strong, but they don’t have a good way of injecting it. So unless one really chews on you, you don’t get much of a dose of the venom,” he said.
Safety Window Of ‘About A Beer And A Half’
Even so, Domenici wasn’t willing to take such risks, and wore thick leather gloves when handling Gila monsters.
He had a clever method of making Gila monsters safe, at least for a little while, when using the venomous lizards to reel in suspects during undercover operations.
During those pre-internet days, the best way to catch attention was to meet people in person.
“I’d walk into a bar with a Gila monster on my arm,” he said, and wait for suspects to come to him.
The trick was, he’d previously put the Gila monster “into a cooler with a wet towel,” to slow the reptile’s metabolism into a lethargic state.
That raises the question: What was his safety window, before the Gila monster got frisky again?
“About a beer and a half,” Domenici said in reply to that question.
Dashing Ducks Bring Big Bucks
As a federal warden in Utah, Domenici again worked undercover cases against black market wildlife dealers. But the species, exotic sea ducks, was safer.
Black market dealers who were skilled taxidermists would go to Alaska and illegally shoot ducks during the spring, when their plumage was the most brilliant, he said.
Then they would come back to the Lower 48 and make taxidermy mounts of the colorful sea ducks, which could fetch big bucks in places like Los Angeles, Domenici said.
Shady wildlife and wildlife parts dealers might be tempted into that racket because it’s lucrative and, relatively speaking, safer than other black markets, he said.
“They’re less likely to get caught than somebody who is into trading drugs or something like that, because there are fewer people looking for them. And there aren’t duck-sniffing dogs in airports,” Domenici said.
All About Wolves And Bears
When Domenici transferred to the Wyoming-Montana district, his main task was staying ahead of the illegal killing of wolves and grizzly bears.
He understands the resentment toward wolves. The FWS wasn’t completely upfront about the fact that there was no way wolves would stay within the confines of Yellowstone National Park after they were reintroduced there, he said.
He found it was best to lend an ear to people most affected by wolves, and get them to work with him, rather than against him.
“Our main thing was to meet with as many people as we could here who were going to have hardships dealing with the wolves” such as ranchers and outfitters, he said.
After letting those people vent, Domenici said he tried to share a simple message with them.
“We can’t change that they’re here, but we want to keep you out of jail, and the best way to do that is for you to call us, rather than take matters into your own hands,” he said.
Domenici said that to this day, the government seems to struggle with public relations when it comes to wolves and grizzlies.
The government needs to quit denying that there’s a negative side to wolves and bears, because there is. I whole-heartedly believe the positive of them outweighs the negative, but they do cause trouble,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
