Aught-Oh

Going back to a small point in this post. How to have a monster quest in an urban dock setting that doesn't feel absurd? What about smugglers importing/exporting exotic animals (read: monsters)? An incongruous encounter with a dangerous and terrified monster, that should be nowhere near an urban setting, as the party enters the docks. Which leads to the crate it broke out of while being loaded onto a ship. Which leads to a smugglers warehouse with pens full of dangerous monsters waiting to be shipped out. Do the smugglers release the monsters so they can escape in the chaos? Does the party let the smugglers go because the city will surely kill the animals? Does the player decide to settle down and open a dock-side zoo?