What do you think of people who take small animals and plants from state parks

my cousins husband who is very rich; smuggled a frog out of state i live in. he took it home in his pocket on the flight back home. my aunt was proud he did it and bragging how he got something for nothing. i was horrified. first of all it is illegal to take any plants, even pick flowers in state parks. in my state, you are not allowed to pick up cactus remnants and yet i see people do it all the time to decorate their yards. by the way the frog cousins husband took is on endangered species list where i live. seems like the rich think they own everything. what is your opinion on those who do things like this in parks that are for everyone to enjoy? i think he should be prosecuted and fined. just because he has money doesn't mean he owns the world. of course i don't have much to do with people like this.

As a person who once worked in some state and national parks, I would tend to agree with you UNLESS the person who took the plant/animal had a permit from the state/national government to collect/possess that plant/animal AND the park manager's permission (both are necessary where I currently live. There can be times when a person takes something from a protected area (usually research toward the long-term protection and recovery of that species). But that doesn't sound like something your cousin had.

If you knew about this at the time, it would have been appropriate to first speak up to your cousin, but you don't make it seem like he would have listened to you. If that were the case, you could have mentioned this to a park ranger or other employee who could have contacted a ranger. If you only found out about it later (while he and his wife were still visiting) you could have told another adult (if you're underage) about what he did. At least the frog may have been able to be returned to the park. But chances are, it will have died once he took it with him. Even if you had reported him, he probably would have just had to return the frog. But he may have been fined if it was an endangered species, as you say. Reporting him may have caused some bad feelings in your family, though, so you would have to consider that and weight having family members mad at you versus feeling the way you do now, knowing they did what they did and got away with it (which may only encourage them to do the same in the future).