Greg Book Review - The Lizard King / Bryan Christy

There is a story behind this book and I was fortunate to come across this book when I did. Kathryn and I were watching Law and Order:SVU a couple of weeks ago and it centered on the dealings of an animal smuggler. This one dealt in all types of mammals and birds, he had a warehouse full of these animals in cages. That night, all of my dreams were about these smuggled animals instead of the usual unicorns, falling off a cliff, or a snake with a vest rolling a donut up a hill. I was that SL Library the next day and I ran across this book about the reptile smuggling trade. I picked it up, along with a couple of other books, and then read it in 3 days. It was that good.

It is the story of the investigation into the Van Nostrand family - a father/son business that made millions each year smuggling reptiles from all over the word - by a special agent of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chip Bepler. The Van Nostrands imported, legally and illegally, thousands of reptiles into the United States each year through Miami and then resold them to pet stores, collectors, and zoos worldwide. The interest in animals was not all natural, sometimes they imported drugs in the bodies of the animals they smuggled in but it was the money that was good. Drugs were much harder to bring as you soon dealt with the FBI and DEA, but nobody cared about animals. The fines were less, jail time was short, and the prosecutor would rather work a drug case than nail somebody for bringing illegal turtles into the country. The reptile trade is a huge business with breeders and hunters laundering their goods through corrupt control agencies in rogue countries and some species being lost due to a high demand from collectors.
Not exactly being a reptile-type guy I was surprised how much I liked the book. The pace was good, the story riveting, and the love of animals by U.S. Fish and Wildlife is evident. These agents are the most underpaid and overworked federal employees - 6 agents assigned to the whole Southeast area alone is not nearly enough to do the job the law requires them to do. My heart went out to the animals, many which died in transit by being stuffed in socks, sewn up in pockets, stacked like sardines in suitcases, or one of the other myriad of ways to hide from the inspectors. Reptiles are cold-blooded so you can safely lower their body temperature and they will stay calm, almost in a trance-like state. I recommend this book highly, two big thumbs up! Here are some pictures of some of the rare species that are regularly smuggled around the world-



A frilled dragon - popular reptile, the inspiration for some of the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park.



Indian Star Tortoise - valued for the star pattern



Spix Macaw - world's rarest parrot



Tokay Gecko - the pit bull of reptiles



Tuatara- the living dinosaur