LOS ANGELES — The former host of Animal Planet’s “Wild Recon” show has been sentenced to two years’ probation and 200 hours of community service after admitting to trying to sell two endangered Iranian desert monitor lizards without a permit.
City News Service reports Donald Schultz was also ordered to pay $9,000 in fines on Monday. In November he pleaded guilty to violating the Endangered Species Act as part of a deal with prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Schultz sold the rare lizards for $2,500 to an undercover federal wildlife agent who answered his 2010 offer on Facebook. A federal agent received the lizards in Buffalo, N.Y., and took them into custody.
On his now-canceled show, Schultz parachuted in to remote locations to take biological samples from deadly snakes and other dangerous animals.