The Brief

TORRANCE, Calif. — In the back of an office building, in a small room that smells like rotting strawberries, a criminal investigator watches his evidence crawl around on wood chips in five open plastic tanks.

The box turtles, native to eastern North America, were found at a nearby international mail facility in Los Angeles about a week prior, packaged in a series of boxes bound for Asia.

“These guys were being illegally exported,” said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) special agent, who asked to remain anonymous because of his undercover work. “Now it’s an ongoing investigation in terms of who shipped them.”

FWS Inspector Mac Elliot looks over a legal shipment while Braxton, a dog trained to smell heavily trafficked wildlife like reptiles and animal parts like ivory, enthusiastically does his job. Wildlife trafficking is one of the largest and most profitable crime sectors in the world. Estimates of its value range from $7-23 billion annually.

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The 40-some box turtles have a more immediate problem. They’re evidence of a crime and its victims. Distressed, possibly sick, and half a continent away from a home they’ll likely never see again, the turtles need specialized care and a long-term home.

Seized animals rarely get returned to the wild because it’s difficult to know where, specifically, they came from. They could carry disease.

“What to do with confiscated live animals has been a concern for as long as I’ve been a wildlife inspector because of the quantity, the care,” said Tamesha Woulard, a 36-year veteran of the FWS Office of Law Enforcement. “What happens after they’re here?"

Last year, the FWS and the Association for Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) launched a pilot project aimed at answering that question in Southern California. With wildlife trafficking surging globally, the organizations are now in talks to expand the program to other parts of the country.

“We’re reacting to a crisis,” said Sara Walker, senior advisor on wildlife trafficking at AZA. “It doesn’t do anything to actually reduce demand.”

Some of the confiscated turtles at the FWS office have mottled splotches on their shells, a sign of potential sickness. The seized shipment of turtles included a mix of Eastern Box Turtles, native to the eastern U.S., and Yucatan Box Turtles, native to Mexico. The Yucatan Box Turtles have pale white heads.

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The illegal wildlife trade is surging 

Wildlife trafficking is one of the largest and most profitable crime sectors in the world. Estimates of its value range from $7 billion to $23 billion annually. A recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that more than 4,000 species are being targeted by traffickers globally, to be sold as food, medicine, ornaments or pets. The crimes are causing “untold harm to nature,” said Ghada Waly, the office’s executive director, jeopardizing “livelihoods, public health, good governance and our planet’s ability to fight climate change.”

An analysis by Moody’s Analytics that used government data from around the world found that from 2018-2021, wildlife trafficking surged 150% globally.

The latest available data from the FWS shows that from 2015-2019, nearly 50,000 live plants and animals were seized or abandoned in the U.S. over that four year period — an average of about 27 individuals per day.

Woulard said the number is definitely higher today.

“To me, what was highlighted after COVID is that people will try to make money using a lot of different methods,” she said. “E-commerce has exploded and there are people that are making pets out of animals that were never pets before.”

Squirrels, skunks, scorpions and snakes.

“But then I started finding ants,” Woulard said. “Ants? Really?

Inspectors Mac Elliott and Ali Ventura look through a shipment.

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Illegal trade isn’t always nefarious, she said. Well-meaning pet enthusiasts don’t always know they’re purchasing something that was collected or shipped illegally. Importers don’t always mean to ship something that’s not allowed. Southern California is a hotspot for the legal import of tropical fish and corals, which can be hard to properly identify.

“There is a legal trade,” Woulard said. “What we do is we facilitate the legal trade and we intercept the illegal trade.”

When a live animal is seized by authorities, regardless of the reason, the authorities assume responsibility for the animal and its well-being.

At the FWS office in Torrance, there’s a room with saltwater tanks to house seized fish, corals and clams. The small room occupied by the 40 scurrying box turtles, a few doors down, has housed everything from rare birds to monkey-tailed skinks — “large lizards that don’t play well with each other,” Woulard said.

Their job is to keep the animals alive, she said. “Long enough for them to get to a place with better care.”

Aquatic species need specific water temperatures, pressure and chemistry. Specialized care at the Aquarium of the Pacific is often given by volunteers like Shaw Droker.

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A new approach 

In the nine months since the Wildlife Confiscations Network launched, participants said it’s helped streamline the process of getting animals triaged and placed in long-term care facilities.

It’s also helped law enforcement officers “who are being absolutely inundated with live animals being smuggled,” said Walker, with the AZA.

Since August of last year, the network has helped place more than 1,300 animals at zoos, aquariums and conservancies in the region. The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach has taken in 500 individual corals and clams in the last six months, said Nate Jaros, senior curator of fishes and invertebrates at the aquarium.

Tropical corals are very popular with aquariasts in the U.S. They’re often confiscated by authorities because they’re misidentified.

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“We really don’t harvest any wild coral for this,” he said, pointing to a massive display tank with schools of darting fish and colorful corals. “Mostly in-house propagation and confiscations have been enough to fulfill our coral exhibit needs.”

Animals that can’t be placed are likely to be euthanized. Fortunately, Walker said, since the Wildlife Confiscations Network launched in October that hasn’t happened yet. “But it’s going to happen in the future, I’m sure,” she said. “We’re just running out of space.”

Efforts are underway to launch similar networks in other parts of the country, Walker said, with the goal of creating a national network. The effort is “obviously a reactive initiative,” she said. “We’re reacting to a crisis. It doesn’t do anything to actually reduce demand.”

When animal care providers receive confiscated animals, they’re often malnourished, sick and distressed. Each animal is inspected and triaged to give it specific care.

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American turtles are increasingly part of the illicit trade

For some of the seized box turtles, temporarily housed at the Fish and Wildlife Service office, their long-term home is likely to be a couple hours drive north, at The Turtle Conservancy in Ojai, Calif.

Since 2017, the conservancy, which is closed to the public, has taken in about 500 confiscated turtles, including about 100 box turtles in just the last year.

A Ploughshare Tortoise (center), native to Madagascar, is critically endangered due to poaching from the pet trade. Their rareness adds to their value on the illegal market. For poachers, Liu said, “It’s like finding a gold brick on the ground.”

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The surge in American turtles being illegally collected and trafficked is part of a broader trend, said James Liu, director and head veterinarian at the facility.

“Now that there’s a lot more wealth in these Asian countries that have always liked turtles — they’ve always valued them as pets, as traditional medicine, as food — they now have the means to buy them from other countries,” he said.

The U.S. has the greatest turtle biodiversity in the world. That richness, coupled with steep declines in Asian turtle populations — what conservationists have dubbed the Asian turtle crisis — and economic hardships in the U.S. following the COVID-19 pandemic, “have created this perfect storm where now Americans are the people who are poaching and sending them to China,” Liu said.

A single box turtle can be sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars, depending on its coloration, wildlife officials said.

The patterns on box turtle shells are meant to emulate dappled light coming through trees to help the animals camouflage in their native forests of eastern North America. Their bright coloration also makes them more desirable for the pet trade.

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In the conservancy’s quarantine room, where new arrivals are kept for 60 days to be screened for disease and to be nursed back to health, Liu wiped the shell of a male box turtle with a wet rag. Its gleaming shell looks like a Rorschach test of ink black and golden orange.

The conservancy’s staff measured the turtle’s weight and moved on to the other confiscated turtles they had taken in. Their tanks run the length of a wall, stacked three high.

“It's a quarantine, but really it's an evidence locker,” Liu said. “Instead of cocaine and other contraband, it's living creatures. It's native U.S. turtles.”

Malibu is pushing back the next phase of its speed camera program to November, originally set to start in September. During the 60-day warning period, drivers going 11 or more miles per hour over the speed limit will get a warning instead of a fine.

The delay, the city says, is needed so adjustments can be made to camera installations.

When fines start

The announcement last week came after a testing period in September recorded around 100,000 speeding violations in less than 10 days.

Enforcement at the 10 cameras along a 21-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway will start sometime after the end of the warning period. According to the city, violations will result in fines, but not driver’s license points or insurance penalties.

Why Malibu added speed cameras

Since 2010, traffic collisions on that part of PCH have killed more than 60 people, the city says. In 2023 alone, there were 220 reported crashes there, with 93 injuries and seven deaths — including four Pepperdine University students who were standing along PCH when a driver hit and killed them. The driver, who is charged with murder, is scheduled to stand trial beginning Dec. 1.

Following that incident, Malibu City Council declared a local emergency over dangerous conditions posed by reckless and speeding drivers.

In 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 1297 into law to allow Malibu to install the speed cameras

Looking to say adios to your lawn by sheet mulching or to add a protective layer to your flower beds? Good news, you don’t need to pay for mulch or woodchips. You can instead get them for free in Southern California. Here are a few different ways, depending on your flexibility - and muscle power.

Free mulch piles

Municipalities across the region offer free mulch.

City of L.A.: You can grab mulch anytime from one of its free mulch piles.

O.C.: You can schedule a pick up from an greenery/landfill

Other cities: see below (or check out your own city government’s page).

• Riverside County Department of Waste Resources 
• City of Rialto Free Compost & Mulch 
• Burrtec's Coachella Valley Composting Facility. It is located at 87011 Landfill Rd in Coachella. 
• City of Rancho Mirage Free Compost and Mulch Program 
• https://www.cityofventura.ca.gov/2524/Free-Compost-Mulch-Program 

Free mulch delivery

If you don’t want to go pick up the free mulch yourself, consider ChipDrop. It’s a service that connects arborists with gardeners to deliver free wood chips.

Beware: you may get a lot of mulch. Like, a lot.

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Connect with an arborist:

If you want to try to control the amount of mulch you get - or the date of delivery - you may want to consider talking to an individual arborist. They often end up with excess woodchips they need to get rid of, or take to the dump. If you call they might be happy to offload some for your garden.

Opponents of Proposition 40 have a message for voters: Don’t be fooled. The billionaire tax is a “Trojan horse” for new taxes on all Californians, ads proclaim. But is that true?

Tucked into the initiative is language granting the Legislature authority to amend the tax by a two-thirds vote “if the statute is consistent with and furthers the purposes of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.” Opponents argue lawmakers and a future governor could, with the stroke of a pen, expand the wealth tax to people with far less than $1 billion.

In a high-tax state, that argument could hold a lot of sway with voters.

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West put Prop. 40 on the ballot; the initiative would levy a one-time, 5% tax on billionaire’s assets. The union rejects the premise of the ad. It says the tax is limited to billionaires and any legislative amendment would have to hew closely to that purpose. Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW, said opponents’ ads are pure scare tactics.

“The billionaire tax is a tax on billionaires. Period. If you’re not a billionaire, you don’t pay the tax,” Regan said in a statement to CalMatters.

Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, the group that paid for the ad, said the message was meant to highlight the policy implications of a wealth tax and the power Prop. 40 gives lawmakers.

“Californians deserve to understand those issues and what they could mean for taxpayers and the state’s economy,” Lapsley said in a statement.

A separate, billionaire-backed group opposed to Prop. 40 has also said the initiative “gives politicians the power to expand the tax to anyone.”

The truth lies somewhere in between.

California courts have given lawmakers real authority to amend laws created by ballot initiatives if the original text of the initiative permits it. However, that power is not unlimited and the measure includes language restricting future legislative changes, said Michael Colantuono, an attorney with expertise in state election law.

Opponents’ ads also don’t mention that Prop. 40 writes the tax into the state Constitution, not just state law, so expanding it would likely require another trip to the ballot.

Legislative authority

Legal experts agree that if Prop. 40 passes, lawmakers would be able to make certain amendments without taking it back to voters.

The state Constitution allows the Legislature to amend a ballot initiative without another vote if the initiative permits it. That’s a relatively common clause in ballot measures, and Prop. 40 includes it.

Megan Jones, a tax attorney at Holland & Knight, said proponents’ claims that the tax could never be changed are disingenuous.

“If it’s going to further the purposes, then they could,” Jones said.

For example, voters passed the Political Reform Act, which governs campaign finance and lobbying rules, in 1974 and lawmakers have amended it almost continually since.

Similarly, lawmakers have amended the Mental Health Services Act, a voter-approved 1% income tax on millionaires, 10 times since its passage in 2004. None of those amendments adjusted the tax rate. Most recently, lawmakers voted to substantially alter how the state spends mental health money and raise additional bond funds. Those changes went back to voters in 2024 as Proposition 1.

But there isn’t always a clear line for when voters need to approve changes, experts say.

“It is common for the Legislature to make amendments,” Colantuono said. “It is (also) common for there to be disputes about those amendments.”

‘Furthers the purposes of’

“Ultimately, it ends up in court,” said Chris Parker, a principal tax attorney at the firm Baker Tilly.

The California Supreme Court ruled in a 1995 case that the Legislature may amend voter-approved laws if the changes can be interpreted as furthering voters’ original goals “by any reasonable construction” — giving lawmakers broad latitude.

In 2021, the state Supreme Court held that the Legislature appropriately amended Proposition 57, a criminal justice reform measure, by barring the transferring of minors under 16 to adult court. Justices cited the 1995 case, noting that “a strong presumption of constitutionality supports the Legislature’s acts.”

Still, the language of the proposition matters.

A few years earlier, in 2019, the Third District Court of Appeal held that a legislative attempt to allow public funding of political campaigns “directly conflicts with a primary purpose” of the Political Reform Act. Lawmakers responded by passing a new bill asking voters to weigh in directly — it appears on this year’s ballot as Proposition 4.

Judges look at two things, Coluantuono said: what reasonable voters thought they were approving, and whether later legislative changes helped that goal, or got in the way.

Certain provisions of Prop. 40 would make it difficult for lawmakers to expand the tax beyond billionaires. The 1995 case established that courts may weigh the language of a ballot measure, arguments printed in the voter guide, and historical context when deciding whether change is consistent with voter intent.

Prop. 40’s purpose and intent section says the measure is meant to support healthcare and education “by raising revenue from a one-time tax on billionaire wealth” — referencing billionaire wealth three times. The voter guide arguments similarly target “approximately 200 California billionaires.”

“They could probably adjust the structure of the tax in marginal ways, but what they couldn’t do is make it a more than a one-time tax, and they probably couldn’t lower the threshold on wealth,” Coluantuono said.

Opponents contend lawmakers could interpret the purpose of the act far more broadly, and a court would agree. They point to the first listed purpose of the initiative that says the tax is meant to “protect access to high quality, equitable health care, and to support funding for kindergarten through grade fourteen public education and food assistance programs.” Opponents also say the proposal gives the Legislature the authority to change all parts of the initiative, including the constitutional provisions.

“Prop 40’s findings and statement of purpose and intent were carefully crafted to ensure that

extending the tax to non-billionaires would be consistent with the measure,” said Kurt Oneto, a lawyer for the No on 40 campaign, in a statement.

Experts said the question would likely come down to how a court read the act’s purposes.

A separate concern: how do you prove wealth? 

Should Prop. 40 pass, it would create an entirely new tax structure in California — one that assigns a value to very wealthy people’s investments, public and private businesses, as well as personal property such as art or car collections.

Valuing something like a tech startup that hasn’t produced a product or gone public could prove especially difficult, Parker said.

“The excise tax that’s being proposed here is on potential,” he said. “The question then is, if we open the door to taxing potential, when does that stop?”

Lawmakers have periodically tried to pass wealth taxes, but the bills quickly stalled. This marks the first time voters will directly decide on one, making Prop. 40 a crucial test of how much appetite Californians have for his kind of tax structure. Jones said the bigger worry isn’t the tax itself, but other taxes that could follow.

“It’s a slippery slope,” she said.

Coluantuono said it would still be politically risky for lawmakers to try to implement a wealth tax on everyday Californians, but history shows temporary taxes have more than once become permanent.

“When we get a revenue stream in the government and we start spending it on services that people value… there’s tremendous political pressure to prevent the sunset,” he said.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, appeared at a South L.A. forum Saturday, where they agreed on some aspects of the city’s approach to reducing homelessness, but offered different ideas on addressing housing costs.

The two appeared separately in conversations with Brenda Verano of CALO News at A Place Called Home, a youth services community organization.

Bass went first, saying she grew up just 20 blocks south of the venue.

“South L.A. has been a big part of my life and what I have done,” said Bass, who in 1991 helped start Community Coalition, which fights for racial and economic justice in that part of the city.

Each candidate was asked how they would build trust in City Hall among Black and Latino residents in South L.A.

“Black and brown poor folks the most have been central in my administration and will continue to be so,” Bass said. “But to me, representation is not just about faces in a room. It's about collaborating on everything you're doing.”

Raman said the establishment “has taken the people of Los Angeles for granted.”

“I’m running for mayor because I don’t want to ignore any part of this city,” she said. “I want to make sure we are people who know these communities not just in the mayor's office but across the many commissions, across the many departments that are designed to oversee these neighborhoods.”

How the candidates would work with LAPD 

Both vowed to expand pilot programs where unarmed social workers respond to certain non-emergency 911 calls instead of the police department.

“Law enforcement should not be dealing with homelessness and substance abuse and mental health,” Bass said. “Those are public health issues.”

But Bass said it's doubtful the police department’s budget will be cut before the 2028 Olympics. The mayor in the past has expressed support for growing the number of police officers.

Raman has said the department is about the right size. She expressed concern about the police department’s cooperation with ICE during recent federal immigration raids.

Raman also criticized the department for its crowd control tactics during protests around ICE facilities. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against some protestors.

“This mayor did not speak out against those actions by LAPD, appointed a chief who has not met this moment, who said he would not enforce laws put in by the state to protect us,” Raman said.

Chief Jim McDonnell has previously said his department would not enforce California's state law banning federal immigration and law enforcement agents from wearing masks on duty. A federal appeals court in February blocked enforcement of the law.

Bass said if the judicial ban is lifted, she would order McDonnell to enforce the state law. The mayor also defended the department’s use of police officers for crowd control during ICE operations.

“If there is a crowd around an arrest, then LAPD is involved because we don’t want to have the federal government doing that,” she said.

Both say city should exit troubled homelessness agency

On the city’s response to homelessness, Bass called the current system “completely disfunctional” and called for a new system under the control of the city.

Currently, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority oversees the city’s delivery of homeless services. Numerous audits have found poor accounting of taxpayer money at the agency — which spent nearly $830 million in public funds last fiscal year.

The county has already pulled its funding from the agency in favor of standing up a new county-run Department of Homeless Services and Housing.

Bass said unhoused people are not getting enough care once they leave the streets.

“It is insufficient. They are not taken care of in terms of their health, education, etc. A new system would enable us to do that,” Bass said.

Raman has said she also supports leaving LAHSA and investing in a new homelessness bureau. She noted that street homelessness fell in her council district while numbers across the city went up, according to this year’s homeless count.

“In the past few years, this mayor has refused to audit our homelessness response,” Raman said. “I am very committed to doing that, and I'll request that audit on day one.”

Sharp divides on housing development, renter protections

On housing, Raman criticized the mayor’s opposition to building more densely in residential neighborhoods near transit centers. She said the result has been more building in the city’s poorer council districts, including the South L.A. district that hosted Saturday’s forum.

“Wealthier neighborhoods, less diverse neighborhoods, whiter neighborhoods have actually pushed back on affordable housing, on greater density,” Raman said.

More of the city, said Raman, should bear the burden of greater density.

“We need to build more housing in Los Angeles, but we need to build it across every single neighborhood,” Raman added.

Bass has said density doesn’t belong in some neighborhoods. She opposed a state law, SB 79, that will force cities to allow apartment buildings up to nine stories tall near rail transit stations.

Bass said her administration has fast-tracked new income-restricted housing. But she argued that certain development restrictions are necessary to prevent gentrification.

“We need housing, but we cannot displace Black and Brown people,” Bass said. “If you have housing that is just built anywhere and everywhere, they're coming for us.”

Raman also criticized Bass’ move to temporarily lift restrictions on short-term rentals in preparation for an influx of visitors during the 2028 Olympics.

“I want to make sure that this mayor’s push for deregulating short-term rental during this time, in ways that are harmful to renters, don’t go through,” Raman said. She said tenants could be displaced as landlords turn long-term rentals into short-term accommodations.

Airbnb and business groups back the proposal, saying it will fill a visitor lodging gap for the Olympics and that it would generate significant municipal revenue. Airbnb has put more than $4 million toward backing Bass and three other city candidates, according to the latest campaign finance reports.