Did you know that the very first federal law enforcement officer to ever conduct undercover work was a US Fish and Wildlife Service officer? It makes sense because the US Fish and Wildlife Service is among the oldest federal law enforcement agencies in the United States. Join Ed and his guest Mark Madison, historian for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, to hear about the earliest Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement pioneers.

Forty years after US Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Marie Palladini took on alligator skin traffickers, Wildlife Officer Jeff Babauta of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was back at it trying to tackle illegal shenanigans associated with the American alligator. In his case, though, Jeff is onto widespread laundering of wild caught alligator eggs and hatchlings, an illegal business that can rack up hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of dollars in profits for traffickers. The practice seriously hampers alligator conservation and can have dramatic impacts on alligator nesting success from year to year.

Lt. George Wilson spent 36 years working as a law enforcement officer for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and recently retired as the lieutenant overseeing the FWC's statewide investigations unit. Since his retirement, George has been consulting with a private organization known as Exulans (www.exulans.net) that provides training and investigative support to emerging countries through a contract with WildAid. George and the Exulans team recently worked to help the nation of Bahamas crack down on illegal charter fishing in Bahamian waters by US based charter boat captains. George is a top-notch investigator who thinks out of the box and now he's sharing that knowledge around the world. Watch for more episodes of Nature's Secret Service with George as he and Ed had many successful joint projects during their careers.