On a recent trip to South Africa, comedian and “Jackass” star Steve-O (Stephen Glover) helped to detain wild tortoise poachers in a sting organized by local animal rights activists.
“One of our plans in South Africa was to ride along with police and an animal rights group to film a sting where they were going to arrest poachers for selling wild tortoises at the side of the road,” he wrote in an Instagram post, “but the cops backed out when they found out we were involved with cameras, and the animal rights people decided to go through with it anyway… It was up to us to detain the poachers until the cops responded to a call from us after the fact. I’ve participated in plenty of hairbrained plans in my time, but I have never been involved in anything so utterly absurd as the four of us flying to Africa to try arresting poachers with our bare hands!”
Tortoise poaching is big business in Africa. The Ploughshare tortoise, for example, is one of the rarest tortoises on the planet. Some experts say there are fewer than 50 remaining in the wild, and if caught, they can fetch as much as $50,000 on the exotic pet market, according to the Guardian.
The Instagram post from Steve-O didn’t detail how many tortoises or what breed they were, but he mentions including footage of the event in his “Steve-O Bucket List Tour” video.
The celebrity has been an animal rights activists for years. While on location in South America he met a street dog in Peru who he ended up adopting and bringing back to the U.S.
