Forbidden Creatures: Inside The World Of Animal Smuggling And Exotic Pets

There are more captive tigers in Texas than wild tigers in India, and Peter Laufer wanted to meet the people who keep them.

In many states it is legal to own a chimpanzee. The Everglades are full of escaped pythons. By Interpol's count, trafficking in live wild animals is the third most lucrative illegal business on earth, behind only drugs and weapons, and estimates run toward $25 billion a year. Smugglers have been caught with a lizard in an artificial leg and a baby monkey in a fake pregnancy belly. Online, a Siberian tiger has been offered for $70,000.

Most of this book takes place in American homes. Laufer begins with Travis, the Connecticut chimpanzee who mauled Charla Nash, and the three attacks that made the country notice the menagerie living next door. Then he goes to meet the keepers. A survivalist who smuggled a monkey with her daughter's help. A woman running what he calls a chimpanzee factory. An exotic-animal auction in Missouri selling servals, spider monkeys, and zedonks. A roadside white tiger named Zeus. The snake hunters working the Everglades. And in Pahrump, Nevada, a tiger named Picasso, who sprays the author from head to toe.

Tippi Hedren argues for ending big-cat sales. Philosophers Mark Rowlands and Peter Singer take up who belongs to whom. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent explains why roller pigeons are a federal matter.

Laufer reports in the first person and in conversation, and he keeps asking the one question the owners can't quite answer. Why do people want a dangerous wild animal in the house?

The book, Forbidden Creatures: Inside The World Of Animal Smuggling And Exotic Pets [Bulk, Wholesale, Quantity] ISBN#9780762771806 in Paperback by Peter Laufer may be ordered in bulk quantities. Minimum starts at 25 copies. Availability based on publisher status and quantity being ordered.