reptiles – Shannon Hollinger

I think it’s safe to say that the last thing you want to see at the end of a five-mile hike, especially when the trail is a loop and you can see your car, is something blocking your path. Especially when that something is a particularly large alligator. One who doesn’t feel compelled to move. And there’s rather deep water on either side of the rather narrow trail….

The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers – The Tiger King ain’t got nothing on these guys!

If you’re looking for a nonfiction book that reads like fiction, this is it! If you’re looking for a plot where sometimes the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys are the good guys, here’s your book. And if you want to read something unbelievable but true, look no further.

The lengths people have gone to in order to procure and trade exotic reptiles is ridiculous. The money that’s changed hands is extraordinary! Growing up, I had a number of snakes, iguanas, even a Nile monitor, and I never stopped to think where these pets came from or what they went through before they came into my home. I feel horrible for having contributed to some of the horrors that occur in this eye-opening tale of the world’s reptile trade, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

From Goodreads: Michael J. Van Nostrand owns a business in Florida importing as many as 300,000 iguanas each year as well as hundreds of thousands of snakes, lizards, frogs, spiders, and scorpions. This book tells how, for years, Special Agent Chip Bepler has been trying to expose Van Nostrand’s suspected crimes as a reptile smuggler