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Voigt - The dragon behind the glass : a true story of power, obsession, and the worlds most coveted fish

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The dragon behind the glass : a true story of power, obsession, and the worlds most coveted fish: summary, description and annotation

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A FINALIST FOR THE 2017 PEN/E. O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE
A LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR
[A] curiously edifying book.The New York Times Book Review
With the taut suspense of a spy novel, Voigt paints a vivid world of murder, black market deals, and habitat destruction surrounding a fish thats considered, ironically, to be a good-luck charm.Discover
[An] immensely satisfying story, full of surprises and suspense....Things get weird fast.The Wall Street Journal
A riveting journey into the bizarre world of the Asian arowana or dragon fishthe worlds most expensive aquarium fishreveals a surprising history with profound implications for the future of wild animals and human beings alike.
A young man is murdered for his prized pet fish. An Asian tycoon buys a single specimen for $150,000. Meanwhile, a pet detective chases smugglers through the streets of New York. Delving into an outlandish realm of obsession, paranoia, and criminality, The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other: a powerful predator dating to the age of the dinosaurs. Treasured as a status symbol believed to bring good luck, the Asian arowana is bred on high-security farms in Southeast Asia and sold by the hundreds of thousands each year. In the United States, however, its protected by the Endangered Species Act and illegal to bring into the countrythough it remains the object of a thriving black market. From the South Bronx to Singapore, journalist Emily Voigt follows the trail of the fish, ultimately embarking on a years-long quest to find the arowana in the wild, venturing deep into some of the last remaining tropical wildernesses on earth.
With a captivating blend of personal reporting, history, and science, The Dragon Behind the Glass traces our modern fascination with aquarium fish back to the era of exploration when intrepid naturalists stood on the cutting edge of modern science, discovering new and wondrous species in jungles all over the world. In an age when freshwater fish now comprise one of the most rapidly vanishing groups of animals on the planet, Voigt unearths a paradoxical truth behind the dragon fishs rise to fameone that calls into question how we protect the worlds rarest species. An elegant exploration of the human conquest of nature, The Dragon Behind the Glass revels in the sheer wonder of lifes diversity and lays bare our deepest desireto hold onto what is wild

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SCRIBNER An Imprint of Simon Schuster Inc 1230 Avenue of the Americas New - photo 1

Picture 2

SCRIBNER

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2016 by Emily Voigt

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department,

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Scribner hardcover edition May 2016

SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior design by Kyle Kabel

Jacket design by Nakim

Jacket photograph by Shelookred Indonesia (Pt. Inti Kapuas International)

Illustration accompanying the species description of the Asian arowana by Salomon Mller and Hermann Schlegel, 1840.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4516-7894-9

ISBN 978-1-4516-7896-3 (ebook)

ART CREDITS

Title page: Courtesy of The Naturalis Museum, Leiden, Holland; : Courtesy of The Natural History Museum, London

For Jeff

&

For my mother and father

The truth is that we never conquered the world, never understood it; we only think we have control. We do not even know why we respond a certain way to other organisms, and need them in diverse ways, so deeply.

Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia

Contents
A Note on Names

This story spans fifteen countries across which naming practices vary widely. In traditional Chinese names, for example, the family name precedes the given name, while many Indonesians have only one name. When deciding how to refer to someonewhether by first or last name where the choice existsI have done so based on what I feel will be most memorable to the reader while aiming for consistency and taking into account my relationship to the person.

Sources Ng Heok Hee Maurice Kottelat and Tim M Berra Prologue TAIPING - photo 3

Sources: Ng Heok Hee, Maurice Kottelat, and Tim M. Berra

Prologue

TAIPING, MALAYSIA, MAY 11, 2004

C han Kok Kuan still wasnt home. Too worried to sleep, his father, Chan Ah Chai, stood at the window watching for a sign of his son through the blinding downpour. The rain had started at midnight and was still pummeling the ground at 4:00 a.m.flooding the streets and overflowing the lakes in the public gardens, where the century-old saman trees stretch their massive canopies over Residency Road.

A wiry, exuberant man of thirty-one, the younger Chan was not the type to stay out late without calling. He had been home for dinner that evening, as usual, after working all day at the aquarium shop he opened a few years back. Even as a child, he had loved anything with fins. Now he was expert in one species in particular: the Asian arowana, the most expensive tropical fish in the world.

In Chinese, the creature is known as lng y , the dragon fish, for its sinuous body plated with large scales as round and shiny as coins. At maturity, the primitive predator reaches the length of a samurai sword, about two to three feet, and takes on a multihued sheen. A pair of whiskers juts from its lower lip, and two gauzy pectoral fins extend from its sides, suggesting a dragon in flight. This resemblance has led to the belief that the fish brings prosperity and good fortune, acting as a protective talisman to ward off evil and harm.

The popularity of the species exploded around the time that Chan Kok Kuan quit his job as a welder to pursue his dream of selling exotic fish. Rumors swirled that a single rare specimen had fetched $150,000 from a Japanese buyer. Though Chan didnt cater to such elite collectors, he had an eye for selecting arowana that were healthy and strong, with the most desirable metallic luster and aggressive bearing. As many as fifty occupied his store at a time, each isolated in its own tank to prevent the fish from fighting to death. Most were young, between the size of Chans palm and his shoe, and sold for up to $1,500 apiece to local aficionados and dealers who distributed them throughout the world.

One such businessman had called earlier that afternoon, asking to buy the remainder of his stock. His father, helping out at the shop as he did everyday, had overheard the conversation and warned his son to accept only cash. Now, as the elder Chan peered out the window through the torrential deluge, he wondered if the boy had returned to the shop after dinner to meet this buyer and decided to wait out the storm. Around 6:00 a.m., as soon as the rain stopped, the father climbed onto his motorbike and drove downtown.

It was a beautiful morning. The air smelled of wet earth, and the streets shone black and slick, puddles shimmering as the sun emerged from behind parting clouds. The tranquillity of the town reassured Chan Ah Chai, who had lived all his sixty-four years in Taiping, a former colonial hill station popular among retirees seeking a quiet life. After toiling in a rubber factory for three decades, he now relished his days feeding fish, changing water, and packing orders with his son.

Turning into the familiar row of shophouses on Jalan Medan Bersatu, he saw that Kuan Aquarium was still shuttered. But as he slipped off his motorbike and moved closer to the door, he noticed the padlock was missing. Lifting the grille, he stepped gingerly into the dark, narrow space crowded with gurgling aquariums that cast a dim fluorescent glow. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that the shop was tidy as ever, goldfish and guppies swimming idly in their tanks.

Taking a step forward, however, his shoe crunched on broken glass, and he looked down to see a streak of crimson on the concrete floor. Blood led to more blood, tracks suggesting a wounded animal trying to escape on all fours. What the father encountered at the end of this grisly trail would sear itself in his mind, waking him in the night for the rest of his life: his sweet boy lying crumpled on the ground, stabbed ten times. He was deadviciously slashed, his neck slit so deeply he was nearly decapitated.

The old man began to shake uncontrollably as he stumbled outside, calling for help. But it was too late. The police would find neither a murder weapon nor a single fingerprint. The victims wallet was still in his pocket, contents intact. Only one thing was missing. Above Chan Kok Kuans lifeless body, the tanks of the Asian arowana loomed empty. All twentysome dragon fish were gone.

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