After a few conservations with some friends, I thought I’d do something a little different and put together a list of my Top 10 popular science books on the illegal wildlife trade. As a reminder, the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is the global black market for animals, plants, and their parts, ranging from ivory, rhino horn, and exotic pets to timber and rare birds. It is one of the world’s most lucrative transnational crimes, often linked to organised criminal networks that exploit weak enforcement, corruption, and high consumer demand. Beyond threatening species with extinction, the trade undermines ecosystems, fuels instability in vulnerable regions, and can spread zoonotic diseases to humans. The books listed below are in no particular order, other than the order that they came to mind. There is a diverse range of titles here to help expand your understanding of the IWT, it does not wholly focus on ivory or rhino horns, any animal, plant or fungus that is removed from the wild and sold illegally contributes to the IWT.
Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery by Jennie Erin Smith (2011)
Stolen World is an investigative work of nonfiction that plunges into the strange, obsessive, and often shadowy world of reptile smuggling. Journalist Jennie Erin Smith spent years researching the global exotic reptile trade, interviewing key figures and reconstructing the rise and fall of notorious smugglers. The book offers a rare window into a black market that is at once dangerous, flamboyant, and deeply entangled with the exotic pet industry. The story revolves around two central figures. Henry Molt Jr. and Tom Crutchfield, both legendary names in the reptile trade. Molt, an eccentric pet-shop owner in Pennsylvania, and Crutchfield, a flamboyant Florida-based dealer, built empires by smuggling rare reptiles from cobras, Komodo dragons, crocodiles, and countless species of lizards and snakes into the United States and beyond. Their careers overlapped with the golden age of the exotic pet trade in the 1960s–1980s, when lax laws and high demand created an environment ripe for exploitation.
Smith paints vivid portraits of these men not only as criminals but as personalities, charismatic, obsessive, and sometimes reckless. Molt is portrayed as secretive and abrasive, alienating allies and ultimately collapsing under legal troubles. Crutchfield, in contrast, is larger-than-life: charming, flamboyant, and notorious for escaping justice more than once. Both men’s stories intertwine with raids, sting operations, betrayals, and courtroom dramas, revealing the murky intersection of business, obsession, and crime. The book traces how rare reptiles moved from jungles, deserts, and islands into suburban terrariums. Local collectors in places like Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Madagascar often supplied animals to middlemen, who funnelled them through loose networks of exporters and importers. These animals then appeared in U.S. pet stores, zoos, and private collections. The trade thrived on loopholes, mislabeling, bribery, and a constant game of cat-and-mouse with customs officials and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Smith makes clear that this wasn’t just an eccentric hobbyist trade, it was part of a broader pattern of wildlife exploitation that contributed to ecological damage, population crashes, and the spread of invasive species. Yet, many participants in the reptile world justified their actions by framing themselves as conservationists or educators, arguing that captive breeding and private collections preserved species. At its heart, Stolen World is a study of obsession (it won’t be the first time I use that word). Molt and Crutchfield, along with the network of collectors and buyers surrounding them, are portrayed as driven not by money alone but by an almost irrational passion for reptiles and the status that came with owning the rarest creatures. The book also underscores the blurred line between science and smuggling, many reptiles that entered the trade were of great interest to herpetologists, and the illegal market sometimes provided specimens for legitimate research and zoos.
Another major theme is the inadequacy of law enforcement. While agencies pursued smugglers, legal penalties were inconsistent, and charismatic figures like Crutchfield often slipped through the cracks. This not only emboldened traders but also highlighted how difficult it is to police wildlife crime when public awareness is low and the victims are animals rather than people. By focusing on Molt and Crutchfield, Smith avoids abstract generalities and instead grounds the story in human drama, making the sprawling world of wildlife smuggling accessible and engaging. By the end, Stolen World leaves readers with a sharper understanding of how fragile ecosystems can be imperilled not only by large-scale poaching but also by the desires of a relatively small, passionate group of collectors.
Winged Obsession: The Pursuit of the World’s Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler by Jessica Speart (2012)
Winged Obsession by Jessica Speart is a gripping work of narrative nonfiction that blends investigative journalism with the pacing of a true-crime thriller. The book tells the story of Yoshi Kojima, a brilliant but notorious butterfly smuggler whose activities exposed the fragile line between legitimate scientific collecting and a black market driven by greed and obsession. At the centre of the chase is U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent Ed Newcomer, whose determination to stop Kojima provides the procedural backbone of the story. Speart structures the book around this cat-and-mouse pursuit, alternating between the smuggler’s methods, the painstaking investigations that track him, and the broader context of the butterfly trade. Kojima emerges as both charismatic and elusive, someone who understands the biology of his prey as deeply as any scientist but channels that knowledge into illicit profit. Newcomer, in contrast, represents the dogged, often under-resourced enforcement side, carrying out surveillance, sting operations, and interagency coordination in hopes of catching a criminal whose crimes are little understood by the public. Alongside them, Speart introduces collectors, middlemen, and local suppliers who together fuel a niche but lucrative global market.
Key episodes reveal how single specimens of rare butterflies (sometimes with extremely limited ranges) are smuggled across borders, often mislabelled or hidden in shipments, before ending up in high-priced collections. Speart vividly conveys the psychological pull these creatures hold for elite buyers and the extraordinary lengths smugglers will go to satisfy that demand. Through these reconstructions, she highlights the moral ambiguity of the butterfly world, where scientific curiosity and conservation can become entangled with commerce and status. Thematically, Winged Obsession underscores the dangers of demand-driven extinction risk. It shows how even insects, often overlooked in conservation debates, can become targets of a sophisticated, transnational trade. The book also illustrates how seemingly niche crimes reflect broader patterns: specialised markets that rely on secrecy, global networks, and blurred legal boundaries. More than that, Speart examines human obsession—why collectors pay extraordinary sums for fragile wings and why investigators dedicate their careers to stopping them.
The book’s strengths lie in its narrative drive and its ability to make a little-known subject accessible. Speart writes with the energy of a crime novelist while grounding her story in first-hand reporting, interviews, and enforcement records. By focusing on personalities rather than abstract policy debates, she ensures readers care about the stakes of wildlife crime. Still, some critics note that the book emphasises drama over technical depth, offering less in the way of population biology or detailed policy analysis. For readers seeking comprehensive data or scholarly frameworks, it works best as a vivid case study rather than a standalone reference. Ultimately, Winged Obsession is an engaging entry point into the hidden world of wildlife crime. It reveals how fragile species can be imperilled not just by habitat loss but by collectors’ obsessions, and how conservation law enforcement struggles in the face of niche, high-value markets.
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson (2018)
The Feather Thief is a work of narrative nonfiction that blends investigative journalism, history, and true crime. It recounts the 2009 burglary of the Natural History Museum at Tring, where American music student Edwin Rist stole hundreds of rare and irreplaceable bird specimens. Johnson, a journalist and former aid worker, stumbled upon the case years later and was captivated by its strange intersection of obsession, science, and crime. The book begins with the crime itself: Edwin Rist, then a 20-year-old American flautist studying in London, broke into the ornithology collection of the museum at Tring, which housed specimens collected during the 19th century by naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. These birds, some collected during Wallace’s travels through the Malay Archipelago, were of immense scientific and historical value. Rist, however, saw them not as priceless specimens but as commodities.
His motive was linked to the world of Victorian salmon fly-tying, an elite subculture devoted to replicating 19th-century fishing lures that used exotic feathers. Despite modern bans on using endangered species, the community still coveted authentic feathers, and the market drove prices into the thousands. Rist, already an avid fly-tier, recognised that selling feathers from the stolen specimens could fund his musical ambitions. After the heist, many of the stolen birds were dismantled for parts, their feathers stripped and sold into the black market of fly-tying enthusiasts. British authorities eventually caught Rist through online traces and tips from within the community, but the recovery of the specimens was partial at best, hundreds remain lost or destroyed. The book traces how law enforcement handled the case, raising questions about whether justice was truly served, Rist received a suspended sentence rather than prison time, citing his youth and an Asperger’s diagnosis.
Johnson’s narrative extends beyond the burglary to explore the culture of the fly-tying community, its secrecy, rivalries, and indifference to the destruction of irreplaceable scientific material. He also places the theft in the broader history of natural history collecting, noting the colonial contexts in which many of the birds were originally obtained. The book emphasises the loss to science. Many of the stolen specimens were unique representatives of extinct or near-extinct species, critical for DNA research and biodiversity studies. Their destruction illustrates the fragility of natural history collections. The topic also highlights that the IWT doesn’t have to involve animals directly collected from the wild, but their remains and derivatives hundreds of years later. Its blend of human drama and ecological consequence makes it both entertaining and sobering.
Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking by Rachel Love Nuwer (2018)
Poached is a work of investigative nonfiction that explores the global IWT in all its complexity. Rachel Love Nuwer, a science journalist with a background in ecology, spent years reporting from Africa, Asia, and beyond to uncover the supply chains, cultural traditions, and organised crime networks that sustain the trade. Her book is both a travelogue and a deep dive into one of the world’s most lucrative and destructive black markets. Nuwer structures Poached as a journey through the trade’s hotspots, meeting poachers in the field, undercover agents, rangers, researchers, and consumers. She travels to countries such as Vietnam, China, Laos, and South Africa, each a vital link in the global chain. Through vivid storytelling, she captures not just the mechanics of trafficking (how animals and their parts are captured, moved, and sold) but also the human stories that drive and resist it.
The animals at the centre of her narrative include elephants, rhinos, tigers, pangolins, and exotic birds, each chosen to illustrate different facets of demand and exploitation. For example, rhino horn is valued in Vietnam as a status symbol and supposed medicinal cure, while pangolins are consumed as a delicacy in China. These cultural practices, combined with rising wealth and status signalling, drive markets that devastate already vulnerable species. One of the book’s strongest features is its behind-the-scenes reporting. Nuwer embeds with anti-poaching patrols in Africa, attends black-market wildlife auctions, and speaks to traffickers and smugglers who explain their motivations. She also documents the dangers faced by conservation workers, who are often underfunded, outgunned, and caught in political crossfire. Her reporting reveals how corruption, weak law enforcement, and international loopholes allow the trade to thrive.
Nuwer also sheds light on the economics of trafficking. She explains how local hunters, often impoverished and with few alternatives, receive only a fraction of the profit, while international syndicates and wealthy middlemen reap the real rewards. By drawing these connections, she reveals the trade not as a series of isolated crimes but as a highly organised, transnational industry. Nuwer’s background as a science journalist gives the book a balance of narrative drive and factual depth. She writes with immediacy, placing the reader in dangerous border crossings, forest patrols, and tense interviews, but she also weaves in ecological and economic analysis. Her tone is empathetic but unsentimental—she portrays both poachers and conservationists as human beings shaped by circumstance rather than caricatures of good and evil.
Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade by Julian Rademeyer (2012)
Killing for Profit is an investigative exposé of the billion-dollar black market in rhino horn. Julian Rademeyer, a South African investigative journalist, spent two years researching the book, conducting interviews, infiltrating trafficking networks, and examining court cases. His work is considered one of the most comprehensive accounts of how rhino horn trafficking operates, making it both a true-crime narrative and a critical conservation document. Rademeyer’s investigation begins in South Africa, home to the majority of the world’s remaining rhinoceroses, and the epicenter of both poaching and protection. The book traces the horn’s journey from poached animals in Kruger National Park and private reserves to the global markets in Asia, where demand is highest. He shows how rhino horn is trafficked through sophisticated criminal syndicates, often aided by corruption at every level—game rangers, veterinarians, government officials, and even members of the hunting industry.
Among the most disturbing revelations is the role of so-called “pseudo-hunts”: legal trophy hunts exploited by criminal networks, where Asian nationals hired hunters (or acted as hunters themselves) to obtain horns under the guise of sport. These horns were then laundered into the black market. Rhino horn, often marketed in Asia as medicine, status symbol, or investment commodity, has become so valuable that its trade resembles narcotics or arms trafficking. Rademeyer also details high-profile cases, such as the involvement of Thai trafficker Chumlong Lemtongthai and links to Vietnamese and Chinese buyers, showing how organised and globalised the trade has become. The book is built on painstaking reporting, with Rademeyer drawing from police dockets, court transcripts, undercover operations, and confidential sources. He exposes not only the poachers who kill rhinos on the ground but also the powerful middlemen and elites who profit from the trade. The narrative reveals shocking levels of violence, including hitmen hired to eliminate rivals, threats against conservationists, and the slaughter of rhinos for horns that can fetch more than gold by weight.
Equally compelling is Rademeyer’s portrayal of enforcement failures. Weak sentencing, bribery, and loopholes in hunting regulations allow traffickers to operate with relative impunity. Even well-meaning conservation policies, like regulated trophy hunting, are shown to have been manipulated by syndicates to supply the market. Rademeyer writes in a sharp, journalistic style that combines narrative storytelling with documentary detail. The book shows that wildlife trafficking is not a peripheral crime but deeply intertwined with transnational criminal syndicates and money laundering. It reads at times like investigative crime reporting, with vivid accounts of smugglers, corrupt officials, and undercover operations. Yet it is also grounded in context, with sections explaining the history of the rhino crisis, the cultural uses of horn, and the failures of global enforcement.
The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers by Bryan Christy (2008)
The Lizard King is a work of narrative nonfiction by investigative journalist Bryan Christy. The book examines the secretive and dangerous world of reptile smuggling, centring on the rise of the exotic reptile trade in the United States and abroad. Drawing on years of reporting, interviews, and access to law enforcement files, Christy uncovers how smuggling networks supplied zoos, pet stores, and private collectors with rare snakes, lizards, and turtles while law enforcement scrambled to keep up. The book revolves around two opposing figures: Mike Van Nostrand, the son of Florida reptile dealer Ray Van Nostrand, who inherited a thriving but controversial reptile business, and Special Agent Chip Bepler, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent determined to bring down illegal smuggling networks. Through their intertwined stories, Christy paints a vivid picture of the reptile trade’s underworld, with its mix of passion, greed, and secrecy.
The Van Nostrands operated a business that appeared legitimate on the surface, selling reptiles to zoos and hobbyists, but beneath that façade lay a steady flow of illegally imported animals. Smugglers brought in species like Komodo dragons, Fiji banded iguanas, and Burmese pythons, often hidden in suitcases, shipped under false names, or laundered through countries with weak enforcement. Their network spanned Asia, South America, and the Pacific, with connections to impoverished local hunters, corrupt officials, and wealthy collectors. At the heart of the book is Agent Bepler’s years-long undercover investigation into the Van Nostrand business. Christy follows Bepler’s attempts to infiltrate the trade, build trust with informants, and gather evidence strong enough to withstand the challenges of prosecuting wildlife crimes in U.S. courts. The narrative builds tension like a detective novel, showing the difficulty of pursuing criminals in a world where laws are often ambiguous, penalties are light, and public sympathy for reptiles is minimal compared to charismatic megafauna like elephants or tigers.
Christy also traces the legal proceedings and courtroom drama that followed, examining how wildlife crimes are prosecuted and why many offenders manage to escape with little punishment. The book captures the frustrations of law enforcement agents who feel they are fighting an uphill battle against both criminals and indifference. As with Stolen World, the book shows how the reptile trade thrives on blurred lines between legal and illegal commerce, where smuggling, captive breeding, and scientific collecting overlap. Christy makes clear that the trade has devastating consequences for wild populations, with species pushed closer to extinction to satisfy demand from collectors. Christy writes with the pace and intrigue of a crime thriller, but the book is grounded in investigative rigour. He combines narrative storytelling with explanatory passages on the biology of reptiles, the economics of smuggling, and the personalities involved. His ability to humanise both smugglers and agents makes the story compelling, while also exposing the moral complexity of people who simultaneously adore and exploit the creatures they trade.
Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab Is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species by Laurel Neme (2009)
Animal Investigators introduces readers to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, located in Ashland, Oregon. Often called the ‘CSI for animals’, this was the world’s first (and remains one of the few) dedicated wildlife crime labs. Neme uses investigative storytelling to show how forensic science is applied to uncover crimes against animals, combat wildlife trafficking, and bring poachers and smugglers to justice. Among all of the books listed here, this provides a unique narrative and perspective into part of tackling the IWT that not many people consider. At its heart, the book is about the scientists and investigators who use cutting-edge forensic methods to protect endangered species. Neme follows the daily work of lab specialists who examine feathers, bones, skins, blood, and ivory to determine not just what species an item came from, but where it originated and whether its possession is legal.
The lab is equipped to analyse everything from powdered tiger bone medicine sold in Asian markets, to carved ivory trinkets, to smuggled parrot feathers. By applying DNA analysis, chemical testing, and morphological comparisons, these scientists link contraband products back to protected species, building cases that can stand in court, and most importantly, lead to prosecutions. Forensics (like with any crime) transforms vague suspicions of smuggling into irrefutable scientific proof, making enforcement more effective. The same human creativity that fuels wildlife crime can also be harnessed to stop it. Neme also shows how trafficking networks connect hunters in remote forests with consumers in global markets. Much of the book celebrates the quiet heroism of the scientists, technicians, and agents whose painstaking work often goes unnoticed but make a profound difference.
Neme writes in an engaging, accessible style that blends elements of science writing, investigative reporting, and true crime. Her background in environmental journalism enables her to make technical forensic processes understandable to general readers, while maintaining narrative drive through real cases and personalities. Rather than overwhelming readers with data, she humanises the scientists and emphasises the stakes of their work: saving endangered species from extinction. To me, the book also helps to raise awareness of wildlife forensics as a discipline, showing how science can be a powerful weapon against international wildlife crime. Neme’s book highlights the scientific tools used to fight back, making it an important piece of the broader puzzle of wildlife crime.
The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean (2000)
The Orchid Thief was originally inspired by Orlean’s 1995 New Yorker article about orchid poacher John Laroche, the book grew into a broader exploration of orchid culture, obsession, and Florida’s strange subcultures. Though not about wildlife trafficking in the conventional sense, it deals deeply with the allure of rare species, the blurred lines between legality and poaching, and the human passions that drive exploitation of nature. At the centre of the book is John Laroche, a charismatic, eccentric, and at times unreliable figure who was arrested in 1994 for stealing rare ghost orchids from the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve in Florida. Laroche, working with members of the Seminole Tribe, claimed he intended to propagate the orchids in captivity and sell them legally, exploiting a loophole in wildlife regulations. His arrest and subsequent trial sparked Orlean’s fascination, leading her to investigate not just his story but the broader orchid-collecting world.
The narrative weaves between Laroche’s life (his brilliance, failures, and obsessions) and the global orchid trade, where collectors have long gone to extremes, from Victorian-era explorers risking their lives in jungles to modern smugglers moving orchids across borders. Orlean captures the peculiar mix of beauty, greed, and mania that orchids inspire. One of the book’s strengths is its rich portrayal of orchid enthusiasts, from amateur hobbyists to wealthy collectors who spend fortunes chasing rare blooms. Orlean immerses herself in orchid shows, greenhouses, and collectors’ societies, meeting people who devote their lives to cultivating, breeding, and hunting orchids. Through these encounters, she reveals how orchids, once obscure, became objects of obsession and status.
She also delves into the science and history of orchids, describing their incredible diversity (over 30,000 species), their unusual biology, and the extreme conditions in which some species grow. The ghost orchid (the rare plant Laroche tried to steal) becomes a symbol of this allure: elusive, fragile, and nearly impossible to cultivate outside the wild. Laroche’s case highlights how poaching, cultural rights, and conservation laws intersect, raising questions about who has the right to own or profit from nature. The book ultimately reflects on why humans are drawn to rare, delicate, and difficult-to-obtain species, and what that says about our relationship with the natural world.
The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter it by Vanda Felbab-Brown (2017)
The Extinction Market is written by Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and an expert on organised crime, insurgencies, and illicit economies. Unlike many narrative-driven books on the IWT, this work is more academic and policy-oriented. It provides an analytical framework for understanding wildlife trafficking as part of global black markets, situating it alongside narcotics, arms, and human trafficking. The book examines the IWT as a complex criminal economy rather than simply as poaching and smuggling. Felbab-Brown argues that IWT is not a fringe issue but a multibillion-dollar enterprise involving organised crime syndicates, insurgent groups, and corrupt state actors. She explores how demand for exotic species, from ivory and rhino horn to live reptiles, birds, and fish drives the decimation of wildlife populations across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
At the same time, she situates wildlife trafficking within broader contexts of governance, poverty, and conflict, showing how weak states, corruption, and lack of enforcement make it possible for the trade to thrive. The result is a portrait of IWT not only as an environmental crisis but also as a security and governance challenge. Felbab-Brown writes in a scholarly but accessible style, blending case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America with broader theoretical analysis. The book does not read like a narrative true-crime account but rather like a hybrid of investigative reporting and policy research. This makes it particularly valuable for academics, policymakers, and conservation practitioners seeking a rigorous overview of the problem and its solutions.
Many local communities participate in poaching because alternative livelihoods are limited, making enforcement alone an ineffective solution. Strict bans (such as those on ivory trade) can sometimes fuel black market demand rather than suppress it, particularly when enforcement is inconsistent. Wildlife trafficking is not just a conservation issue; it undermines national security, finances violent groups, and weakens governance. Effective countermeasures must integrate law enforcement with development, community incentives, and demand reduction campaigns. While less entertaining than narrative nonfiction works, it provides the analytical depth needed for understanding why wildlife trafficking persists and how it might be countered.
The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade by Jared D. Margulies (2023)
The Cactus Hunters is Jared D. Margulies’s deeply researched exploration into the illicit global trade of cacti and succulents. Margulies, a political ecology scholar, draws from extensive ethnographic fieldwork spanning seven countries across four continents to interrogate why and how human desire propels the illegal harvesting of these iconic plants. The work deftly blends psychoanalysis, particularly the Lacanian concept of desire, with political ecology and environmental humanities to dissect the affective and structural forces at play. The book unfolds across eight richly textured chapters, beginning with the author’s introduction to the world of succulent collecting and ending with reflections on extinction and more-than-human relationships. Along the way, Margulies journeys through multiple ecosystems and collector communities: from cactus expeditions in Brazil and threatened species in Mexico, to collector greenhouses in the Czech Republic and smuggling networks spanning California to South Korea.
A thread of psychoanalytic conceptualisation weaves throughout, especially in the use of Lacan’s idea of desire (the notion that individuals pursue plants to fill an inner lack) bringing depth to ethnographic vignettes and interviews with collectors and smugglers. At its core, The Cactus Hunters argues that collecting succulents isn’t about botanical interest alone, but about symbolic longing and identity. The Lacanian lens spotlights how collectors project their own psyche onto plants, a dynamic Margulies calls eximacy, a sense of intimacy with something simultaneously other. Empirically, he shows how this psychological bond drives illicit extraction, aggravating extinction risks for a group of species where roughly one-third are already threatened. The narrative also foregrounds how political economies, colonial histories, and governance frameworks contribute to conservation crises. Succulent trade (legal and illicit) is shaped not only by individual desire but also by global inequality, commodification, and power relations.
Margulies doesn’t just theorise, he participates. He joins ‘cactoexplorations’ with the plant-obsessed, attends expositions in Europe, penetrates smuggling rings, and explores remote wild habitats. Collectors emerge in his narrative as complex characters, some taxonomical hobbyists, others retirees seeking identity through plants, and even ‘cacto-explorers’ whose childhood reveries of a foreign Wild West find expression in cactus obsession. The book also documents wild succulent extractions, like Dudleya pachyphytum being poached in California and sold to South Korean markets, highlighting how deeply global the trade is.
I will say now, that this list is not exhaustive. I have tried to include as many viewpoints and species as possible, without focussing on the typical species when we tend to think of the IWT. As an example, I have intentionally included a couple of books focussing on plants in order to try to reduce our growing plant-blindness in a world where it seems to be growing. You may be thinking to yourself, how did you find all of these? Things started with Stolen Worlds and The Lizard King, which are both about reptiles and then went from there. For The Feather Thief, I need to thank my friend and colleague Darren Naish who recommended it given my love of natural history collections, which eventually saw me visit the NHM Tring earlier this year. I recommend that anyone with an interest in the IWT read all of these books above for their varying views and impacts of such a damaging market on the world’s wildlife. If you’re studying conservation, ecology or the illegal wildlife trade, then I feel these these are particularly important. Together, these books cater to a spectrum of readers, from casual explorers of true crime to scholars, conservationists, and those interested in the human–nature relationship.
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