On the surface, Strictly Reptiles of Hollywood, Florida is the world's largest reptile import-export company, legally selling hundreds of thousands of snakes, spiders, and other creepy crawlies each year, and the likely source behind the green iguana or turtle in your local pet store.
But to Special Agent Chip Bepler of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, owner Mike Van Nostrand and his father are the brains and bank behind a vast global wildlife smuggling network.
In his non-fiction book, THE LIZARD KING, author Bryan Christy takes readers on a wild ride into a criminal jungle extending from South Florida through Europe, terminating in Southeast Asian mastermind Anson Wong, "the Pablo Escobar of wildlife trafficking," who uses cheap reptiles as a front to traffic the world's most precious animals, including rhinos, pandas, and snow leopards.
...And not just the bad guys'. In researching this book, Christy was bitten between the eyes by a blood python, chased by a mother alligator, sprayed by a bird-eating tarantula, and ejaculated on by a Bengal tiger.
May 10th, 2012
Here is something out of the ordinary–a cosmetics campaign for BETTER reptile care, and shut down! Usually the fashion industry is in the business of killing reptiles for handbags. BUT, in this case a fashion house went out in favor of better reptile care and the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority shut the Lush Cosmetics advert campaign down for pointing out that trade drives some species to extinction.
This is certainly true for some chameleon species (the Roti Island Snake Necked Turtle might also agree, for example). Wild-caught chameleons fare horribly in the pet trade, often dying within a year, often dying in-transit. Here’s an online source the ASA might have started with September 2001 CHAMELEON information Network Journal No. 41, p. 11 by Ardi Abate, or even this: http://www.animalarkshelter.org/cin/.
Tags: Advertising Standards Authority, Animal Welfare, Ardi Abate, chameleon, Lush, Lush Cosmetics
Posted in Animal Welfare, Wildlife News | No Comments »
April 18th, 2012
Here are a couple of stories on a growing problem, or at least an always-evolving problem, the use of reptiles and amphibians as human food.
Popular among Asians and re-located rednecks, bullfrogs in San Francisco are bringing in the chytrid virus, a deadly amphibian disease that is wiping out frogs around the world. Here’s a well-written piece on the bullfrog dining issue by John Upton via NY Times Blog. For more on the virus or on frogs in general go to Kerry Kriger’s comprehensive Save the Frogs, and remember April 28 is Save the Frogs Day (which doesn’t, of course, mean leftovers).
The Washington Post recently had this story on the sale of live animals in Asian supermarkets–live crayfish, eel, bass, bullfrogs, etc.–which are often raised on farms. The Virginia state agent is wrong when he says in the story that history shows when wildlife is commercialized the population dwindles. History shows that when wildlife is taken from the wild on a commercial scale its population dwindles, but when wildlife is farmed, as is the case with the species in the story, that is not always the case. It depends how valuable the animal is price-wise, its reproduction rate, commitment of law enforcement, and the viability of its wild population: rabbits are better farmed, tigers are not. American alligators, once on the verge of extinction and now prolific and widely farmed, make a great case study. They do not, however, make for especially good eating.
My own version of these stories occurred at a pet store not long ago. I was looking at a pair of red-eared slider turtles swimming around a tank. An Asian woman standing next to me said to her boyfriend, “They’re so cute. I just want to take them home and have them for lunch.” I have heard the same thing about lobsters in Maine, sans the cute part.
Tags: frogs, Great Wall Supermarket, herpdigest.org, John Upton, Justin Jouvenal, Kerry Kriger
Posted in Animal Welfare, General Wildlife, Reviews, Wildlife News | No Comments »
THE LIZARD KING is the true story of crafty smugglers supplying rare animals to collectors and zoo curators worldwide; it is the story of an amazing multi-million dollar industry in genetically-designed snakes selling for $100,000; and it is a story of obsession. 
