Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets [Hardcover]

Peter Laufer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2010

Laufer exposes the network of hunters, traders, breeders, and customers who constitute this nefarious business—which, estimated at $10 to $20 billion annually, competes with illegal drug and weapons trafficking in the money it earns criminals.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Versatile journalist Laufer follows his earlier exposé of obsessive butterfly collecting, The Dangerous World of Butterflies (2009), with an intimate look into the motivations of exotic pet ownership. With an eye to tragic wild-pet attacks, he talks to people who own monkeys, lions, tigers, and reptiles, and he interviews people such as actress Tippi Hedren, who fight to end the practice. Laufer lets owners speak for themselves as they rationalize their deep love for creatures they must keep caged and crated for their own and their animals’ safety. By visiting those who attempt to illegally import pets and those who run rescue operations, he observes each extreme of the ownership journey. Laufer spends time in South Florida, where people buy Burmese pythons, and the Everglades, where the devastating effects of nonnative species in the wild are the focus of a serious federal eradication effort. Laufer can’t help but come to his own conclusions about right and wrong, and the serious problems this industry engenders are obvious. --Colleen Mondor

Review

“Forbidden Creatures addresses an important issue with major environmental and ethical consequences—the alarming spread of animal smuggling. Let’s hope it helps stem the tide.” –Allison Chin, president, Sierra Club

 

“This book is a wild romp through backyards and bedrooms full of exotic—sometimes dangerous—creatures. And it is an exploration of the human psyche: What drives some people to become outlaws just to satisfy their desire to subjugate nature’s other beasts? Laufer has hit another home run.”
—Mark Bauman, National Geographic Society

In praise of The Dangerous World of Butterflies:

 

“[A] compelling, all-angles examination. . . . Laufer delivers an absorbing science lesson for fans of the colorful bugs.” --Publishers Weekly

 

"Recommended for scientists and lay readers who enjoyed Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief." —Library Journal

 

"Like The Orchid Thief, The Dangerous World of Butterflies takes us deep into the dark heart of obsessed collectors and the passionate activism of people working to repopulate species like the Palos Verdes blue. Worlds within worlds: Laufer, a veteran reporter on cultural and political borders, understands how these worlds cross and collide. His book is a Venn diagram of the beautiful and bizarre." --Los Angeles Times

 

"[Laufer's] book is charming and his attention to detail, combined with a real gift for describing these fascinating characters -- like calling entomologist Arthur Shapiro "an endless litany of intriguing butterfly stories" -- made me want to read everything else he has written." --Andrew Ervin, Washington Post

 

"...Laufer's The Dangerous World of Butterflies packs real entertainment wallop in a book filled with informed tidbits custom-designed for cocktail hour." --P. Joseph Potocki, The Bohemian

 

"A charming . . . meditation on butterflies and the people who love them." --Kirkus

 

"The Dangerous World of Butterflies: the Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists by Peter Laufer is an eye-opening peek into the world of butterfly collecting. From true crime to heated debates between butterfly conservationists and butterfly farmers, this book reads like a novel." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press (June 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1599219263
• ISBN-13: 978-1599219264
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #297,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Laufer, Ph.D., is the author of more than a dozen books that deal with social and political issues, including "Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq," "Wetback Nation: The Case for Opening the Mexican-American Border," and "Iron Curtain Rising: A Personal Journey through the Changing Landscape of Eastern Eurpoe." He is the coanchor of "The Peter Laufer Show" on radio station Green 960 in San Francisco. More about his books, documentary films, broadcasts, which have won the George Polk, Robert F. Kennedy, Edward R. Murrow, and other awards, can be found at peterlaufer.com. He lives in Bodega Bay, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent read but I felt he came across as biased., April 18, 2011

By 

Thundergod (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets (Hardcover)

I read and purchased this book after seeing it attached to 'Stolen World' on Amazon. The author interviews some interesting people but when interviewing them seems to go to great lengths to make them seem rather bizarre when in some cases they seem perfectly responsible in what they are doing. He makes attempts to dismiss their efforts and successes often with glib commentary. As an example at Chimparty one would have to be clueless not to see that the lady being interviewed has done an admirable job maintaining such a large and difficult group of animals. Zoos often have more resources and staff and don't do nearly as well as she has done. Likewise her knowledge of these animals is a resource for their captive management. This is aside from her breeding and selling chimps which I do not support. But the rest of what she has done is an admirable effort that the author simply dismisses as his words ' a misguided, tragic figure, an unfortunate woman who may be as trapped and broken as her chimps'. Nonsense, she has been passionate, dedicated, respectful, and successful with a difficult species. She has done better than most zoos for goodness sakes. Is this even broached- No as that would make exotic owners seem positive.

Another complete miss on his part is the benefit of animal outreach programs to the general publics general awareness of wildlife in general. If all we had where public instituions with wildlife the public would be woefully underinformed and unfamiliar with animals and this would hurt allot of the very causes alleged animal rights groups support. Shamu may not have the life of his wild cousins but can anyone reasonably argue that the captive whale doesn't increase public awareness of wild populations.

The author is completely dismissive of the very real environmental toll loose house cats have on native populations of wild animals particuarly songbirds. He poo poos the mention of this from Shawn Heflick. Later mentioning his vet(obviously misguided as well) tells him a housecat should be outdoors. The damage housecats do across the USA to various species far exceeds that of the pythons in the everglades.

In conclusion while the author does a decent job highlighting the relatively rare occurrences of exotics causing problems and attempts to be even handed in allot of places. In the end his work is pointedly one sided and to dismissve of logic and the reality of how animals exotic and not impact our world.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Revealing, March 15, 2011

By 

Knowledge Contagion (California - again) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets (Hardcover)

Honestly, this book isn't what I thought it would be. But I was enthralled nonetheless. Mr. Laufer is an admirable journalist. He takes a controversial subject and expresses multiple facets of the issue while remaining fair and relatively unbiased. I was very impressed with the way he presented the owners' stories because it would have been very easy to represent them as delusional and ignorant, if not downright stupid. But he told their stories in detail, free of judgment.

One reason I respected Mr. Laufer and enjoyed his book is that he went into this endeavor not knowing how he felt about the issue; he went into it wanting to understand other people's motives - the people who wanted to own exotic "pets," the ones who bred and sold them, and the ones who wanted to ban exotic pet ownership (as well as breeding, buying and selling, of course). He carefully weighed all sides, but the running theme was the desire to understand why people were compelled to share their homes with big cats, apes and long snakes.

He presented facts (many of which were fascinating), observations, opinions, and stories. I didn't feel that he was trying to sway his readers to one point of view or the other, which is refreshing.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars General-interest and wildlife-oriented collections will find this a 'must', August 13, 2010

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets (Hardcover)

FORBIDDEN CREATURES: INSIDE THE WORLD OF ANIMAL SMUGGLING AND EXOTIC PETS comes from an investigative journalist who chronicles his worldwide quest to penetrate international smuggling circles. His experiences make for eye-opening reading packed with facts and drama, presents personal encounters with breeders and smugglers, and chronicles the crisis of wild species. General-interest and wildlife-oriented collections will find this a 'must'.