About 100 museum specimens are known and most major natural history museums have one or more in their collection. These were generally collected in the 1960s–1980s or earlier, often during floods when earless monitor lizards were swept along the current and ended up in fishing traps. From the 1960s to the 1990s small numbers entered the pet trade. In 2012 it was featured in a Japanese reptile keepers magazine and in the following years a larger number of individuals entered captivity. From May 2014 to October 2015 at least 95 earless monitor lizards appeared in the trade in Asia (Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan and Malaysia), Europe (Czech Republic, France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom) and the United States. Collecting the species from the wild is illegal; the earless monitor lizard has been protected in Malaysia since 1971, in Brunei since 1978 and in Indonesia since 1980. Penalties range from a fine of US$1,600 and one year's imprisonment (Brunei) to $7,850 and three years' imprisonment (Malaysia), to $8,600 and five years' imprisonment (Indonesia). As a precaution some scientists that have discovered individuals in the wild have refused to provide the exact location, only describing it in very broad terms, citing fears of alerting wildlife traders. In 2015, a smuggler was caught in an Indonesian airport with 8 individuals and in 2016 another was caught in an Indonesian airport with 17 individuals. This trade is supported by the very high price. When first entering the market in Japan, a pair sold for ¥3 million (more than US$25,000). Although the price has since fallen by more than 90% due to increased availability, it remains valuable. Significant declines in price have also been noted elsewhere. Unlike all other monitor species, the earless monitor lizard was not listed on CITES, which would restrict trade at an international level. In 2016 it was proposed that it should be placed on CITES Appendix I, and in 2017 it was afforded a level of protection when placed on Appendix II (export quota is zero for wild individuals for commercial purposes).