Beyond the famous floor-to-ceiling exhibits of the Georgia Aquarium, the largest in the US, is a years-long rescue for a tiny little species.

This is all live coral in here. Corals are an animal.

Without eyes and ears, corals are easy to mistake for plants, but these are animals, and the ones here are being nursed back to health. This tank is full of corals rescued from the hands of thief.

This is living evidence that you're looking at that can be used for court cases.

The black market for illegally trafficked wildlife is seeing a surge.

There is a black market, but there's also legal trade, so it becomes complicated by that. It is a constant challenge.

Officials say the trafficking of wild animals often happens in tandem with other criminal activity like drug trafficking. Within the span of four years, US Fish and Wildlife saw 834 cases of wildlife seized, abandoned, or refused entry, and coral was in the top three of all cases.

The The unfortunate thing is wildlife trafficking is a low-risk, high-reward crime. If you get caught, you're not going to be punished very much, but there is a very high economic reward to be had if you don't get caught.

They're looking to expand their network in the Southeast, a region that has consistently seen the highest number of trafficked and seized animals of any region in the country. Crooks are cashing in on a lucrative illegal trade using trafficked corals stolen from the reef and selling it to smaller aquariums or turning it into decoration, even jewelry. Stopping these trades in their tracks is why the Wildlife Confiscations Network was founded.

We launched last October, and we've helped place 2,400 individual animals.

30% of those animals have been corals, an animal already fighting to survive warming waters. A fourth global coral bleaching event confirmed by Noah just this year, threatening to kill even more reefs beyond repair.

They have enough working against The last thing they need is to be plucked from the wild illegally.

As they fight for steeper penalties for wildlife crime, the smaller battle is being fought right here.

We've provided a home for hundreds of these protected species in our exhibits where millions of guests can see them in a live coral habitat.

The Georgia Aquarium is one of many partners who take in the trafficked animals, be it rays or coral, that would otherwise have no hope of survival.

A lot of these came in, they were completely white and have since regained much of that coloration. With healthy conditions, the corals can recover.

Aquaricin curators like Steve Harder devote every minute to bringing these corals back to health in the way you're used to seeing them, full of color and teeming with life.

I love taking these corals and creating displays and using them as paint on the canvas. These corals provide that living artwork.

His hope is that his inspired creations inspire more people, big and small.

Wow. Marissa Para joins us now. Marissa, inspiring for sure. But also, what happens next? Those corals are brought back to life. They get their colors. Are they released back into the wild? How does it work?

Well, with these corals, the problem is that's a very difficult thing. They have to be nursed back to health. And so a lot of times it's impossible to release these wild animals. And it depends on the situation, of course. It depends on the specific situation with that specific animal. But I will say I learned so much about all of the work that goes into this. And I do want to quickly talk about this network as a whole, because obviously we spend so much time talking about the Georgia Aquarium, specifically looking at corals. But this network is a nationwide effort. This is in coordination with other zoos around the country, including the Los Angeles zoo. There's all kinds of animals. We mentioned the rays also at the Georgia Aquarium, but there's animals like tortuses that get rescued. And so we thought it was really interesting to focus on a micro level on the Georgia Aquarium, especially because looking at how much trafficking there is in the Southeast region, specifically Gaudi. So as we mentioned, they're looking to expand the Southeast region. And that is part of why we embedded with the Georgia Aquarium, because they are going to have a much larger role in that in the future.

Wild to see that map. You'd think that Florida are places that had a Coast, but so far inland in the United States, it was really weird. I got to ask. Look, I'm one of those guys that was watching this and was like, Coral? Oh, yeah, it is an animal, but doesn't really compute as an animal to me. You got a chance to spend some time with them. What was the impression that you were left with?

God, there was so much that I learned from this, and I think you speak to one of the first lessons was I think I got a deeper appreciation of coral. I never really thought of them as animals, but one, just watching how much care goes into nursing them back to health. And you can see just how much their curators, Nisuaquara, really care about them. And it was really cool, Gaudi. I think one of the coolest moments was they were showing me, they call it the feeding time, and you could see the coral reacting to the food. And they were describing what they thought was. They were saying that the coral was really enjoying it. But I have been to this aquarium before, Gaudi, and I just have such a new appreciation knowing now that these same coral reef exhibits that I have looked at before, I not only had no idea how much effort went into creating those exhibits, but I think it's really special that now we know that they're a part of this rescue network to save trafficked animals. And of course, they're trying to stop trafficking before it happens. But it's really beautiful that it's now a part of a network that gives them a home where they wouldn't have it otherwise.

Yeah. Beautiful to see an interconnected species that's given us a lesson on how to live life, I guess. Marissa Para, thank you so much.

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