This story originally aired on December 2, 2017.
Elk meat, eagle feathers, bear gallbladder. These are just a few of the items sold by wildlife traffickers in the Pacific Northwest.
How bad is this black market? Washington state Fish & Wildlife detective Todd Vandivert wanted to find out.
He and partner Sergeant Jennifer Maurstad went undercover as small business owners, risking their lives to bring in some of the largest animal traffickers in the region.
But as Operation Cody continued to expand, Vandivert began to see that the market for illegal wildlife was larger than he ever imagined.
