Jessica Speart - Winged Obsession: The Pursuit of the Worlds Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler

For those who dedicate their lives to protecting the wild things

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what hes been given. But up to now he hasnt been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild lifes become extinct, the climates ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

A NTON C HEKHOV , U NCLE V ANYA , 1897

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

B LAISE P ASCAL

Contents

obsess vt : to haunt, fill the mindobsession n

H EY, WHAT DOES YOUR GUY look like again?

Special Agent Ed Newcomer stood planted behind a column in the Customs area of Los Angeles International Airport. It was the busiest time of the day. The place looked like the middle of Times Square during rush hour. It was awash with new arrivals in a moving mosaic of sights, sounds, and smells.

He stared in disbelief as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jamie Holt asked the question. The agent couldnt be serious. Newcomer was quickly getting a bad feeling about all of this. What do you mean? he asked in return, his stomach doing a three-sixty.

Well, there are only about five people left, and no one in Immigration has seen him yet, Holt admitted.

Though neither of them said a word, it wasnt a far stretch to guess that thered been a screwup somewhere along the way.

Newcomers eyes darted around nervously as he broke into a cold sweat. How could he simply disappear? Who in the hell was this guy, anyway? Houdini? He was on the flight, right? he double-checked.

This would be the third time that his perp had slipped away. Three strikes and youre out , he thought cynically, a wave of nausea beginning to overtake him.

Yeah, yeah. He was definitely on the flight. Just hold on. Dont worry yet. Ill be right back, Holt said, trying to reassure him before rushing back toward Immigration.

Dont worry . That was a good one. All this case had been so far was one major headache. After three long years of grueling undercover work, this was supposed to be his payday.

Newcomer took a deep breath, trying to summon his last bit of energy to put this case to rest. Panic was already oozing out of him. LAX was the fifth-busiest airport in the world, with fifty-five million people passing through every year. It felt as if each and every one of them was here today.

Holt ran back, looking as if shed just seen a ghost. He was here all right, but he somehow got through.

The words shot through Newcomers brain as if theyd been fired from a .357 Magnum. What the hell do you mean he somehow got through? he demanded.

Four hundred people had just disembarked from a Japan Airlines flight. The room started to spin as Newcomer feverishly searched through a sea of Asian faces. The crowd became a nonstop blur of moving body parts and jostling luggage intent on only one thing: making their way as quickly as possible toward the exit.

A bitter laugh began to rise in Newcomers throat. Goddamn it. Had Kojima really won again? It was as if hed taken a play straight out of Bobby Fischers handbook and just declared, Checkmate.

How in the hell had his case ever come to this?

Without obsession, life is nothing.

J OHN W ATERS

I T WAS A PERFECT MORNING . There couldnt have been a better day for the annual Bug Fair at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. It was only 10 AM that May 30, 2003, but a crowd was already spilling down the museum steps and forming a long line on the walkway, waiting to get into the exhibit. The swarm of people resembled a giant wriggling millipede.

Bugs are cool, a mom told her son as they stood on line for the weekend event.

Whos she kidding? U.S. Fish and Wildlife special agent Ed Newcomer thought to himself. Has she ever taken a good look at a water bug? Theyre creepy, crawling, disgusting insects.

Were the real pests here, a man informed his daughter reflectively.

A six-foot-tall Timmy the Terminator bug playfully swatted the girl and then handed her an insect coloring book.

If Newcomer had been the father, hed have taken the coloring book and used it to smack the mutant bug back.

Even celebrities patiently waited in line with their youngsters in tow.

Newcomer slipped past the throng and through the front door to blend with the growing crowd inside. Twelve thousand people turned out for the event, making the weekend the museums two busiest days of the year. Who would have thought an exhibit of bugs and butterflies would draw so much attention?

The museums entire first floor was dedicated to the fair. Seventy vendors lined the African Mammal Hall and the North American Mammal wing under the watchful eyes of the stuffed resident wildlife. Every nook and cranny was crammed with insects either dead or alive and crawling. Kids squealed in a mixture of horror and delight as exhibitors placed live tarantulas in their palms and let them crawl up their arms. A bug chef beckoned to passersby to stop and sample his wares. The menu included tarantula tempura, desert hairy scorpion scallopini, and Washington waxworms delicately seasoned with sugar and shredded coconut. It was a rare treat for those brave enough to give it a try. Newcomer wasnt among them.

He worked his way past booths touting beetles elegant as couture jewelry, their shells the color of precious gems. But the main event was the butterflies. There were morphos , blue as Paul Newmans eyes, and birdwings, green as showers of shamrocks. Still others flaunted wings in rainbow hues of purple, sun-drenched orange, blood red, and blacks deep and dark as infinite black holes. Each was pinned and mounted like a fine work of art. Except these masterpieces had once been alive.

The museum seemed the perfect venue for such a show, since butterflies are at least forty million years old. What other species lives almost everywhere on earth but for the frigid Antarctic and the most arid of deserts? Along with their vast territory is their range in size. The smallest species is the half-inch pygmy blue butterfly, while the Queen Alexandra, with its eleven-inch wingspan, is larger than many birds.

However, size isnt the only difference among butterflies. Their life span also varies. The spring azure appears with the first warm weather of spring and lives only a few days, whereas the mourning cloak, with its funereal dark cape of wings fluted in gold, is the longest-lived butterfly, lasting eleven months. Its no wonder there are approximately 20,000 species of butterflies worldwide, of which 725 of them reside in North America. Even more mind-boggling is that each has its very own unique wing pattern.

Though the fair was promoted as an educational event, it was also a big moneymaker for vendors, with wads of cash changing hands. Sure, there were butterflies being sold for five and six bucks apiece. But there were others with price tags of up to fifteen thousand dollars. Newcomer was always amazed at what people would spend on dead wildlife. It seemed theyd become so detached from the natural world that they preferred their nature in a box.

He took it all in as he studied one booth after the next. He wasnt there for the bugs, and though he got a kick out of seeing movie stars, they werent his prey du jour, either. He glanced down at the photo in his hand. It was a legal resident-alien drivers license, gratis the California Department of Motor Vehicles. His prey was an Asian man who was a notorious bug collector. It was time to make the donuts and find his quarry.

A moment later he spotted his target. Or, at least, thats what he hoped. The man didnt look much like his drivers license photo. But then again, who did? Newcomers own drivers license made him look like a kid. Still, there could be little doubt. This had to be the guy he was after.