20,000 exotic animals seized from Texas business

Arlington Animal Services served a civil seizure warrant on U.S. Global Exotics, a multimillion-dollar business that acquires these creatures from around the world, then sells them for premium prices.

The collection includes snakes, wallabys, tarantulas, turtles and hedgehogs.

"We're finding huge amounts of dead animals in with the living ones," said Jay Sabatucci of Arlington Animal Services. "We're finding turtles who are basically in a toxic soup of water and other dead turtles."

The Humane Society of North Texas and the SPCA of Texas are among the organizations helping city officials try to collect and catalog the menagerie from the facility in the 1000 block of Oakmead Drive.

Veterinarians from around the country and even one from Great Britain were flown in to provide their expertise in evaluating and treating the more exotic animals.