WASHINGTON - It was a sad day at the Reptile Discovery Center at the National Zoo, as Reptile Behavioral Specialist Steven Welly transferred his life’s work into cages headed for Ivanka Trump’s shoe factory in China.

Welly is a Stanford-educated zoologist and self-identified “snake lord.” He told us his heartbreaking story in the main reptile housing center within the Smithsonian’s Zoo.

“I barely have time to say goodbye,” he said, the emotion thick in his voice. He gently picked up another rare reptile: the Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, also known as the Lesser Slimy Hellworm, and put it in a cardboard box with its favorite food; freeze-dried garbage from the dumpster of the worst Italian restaurant in town.

“They know that something is wrong. They can feel changes in the aura. They just know,” he said.

Welly is packing up the entire small-reptile exhibit in the zoo on the direction of early morning tweets made by the President on Tuesday, October 3rd.

“The lame and failing reptile exhibit at the National Zoo will be closing its doors FOREVER! Let’s stop giving taxpayer money to Washington snakes. #Draintheswamp #BuildtheWall,” he tweeted at 3:13 a.m.

This declaration came after a long day of budgetary negotiations and mounting pressure for the president to deliver on his campaign promises.

“The president thinks that he’s killing two birds with one stone by defunding the Reptile Discovery Center and transferring the money towards building the border wall. In reality, he’s just killing over 200 of the most endangered reptiles in the world,” he explained as he angrily scribbled an address onto a box. “With one stone.”

Soon after Trump’s early morning Twitter rampage, Welly received an official email from the White House ordering for all reptiles to be packed up and dropped off behind the abandoned post office in Washington Highlands for shipment to a factory in China which reportedly makes Ivanka Trump branded shoes.

Welly has already started a GoFundMe page in order to raise money to buy the animals back, but it may already be too late.

“These reptiles are my only friends. The warm-bloods just don’t understand me, man. I never thought that Trump’s wall would tear my family apart.”