The bird smugglers of Mountain View
Author: Anthony David Parsons
Publisher:
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 91
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRead and Download eBook Full
Author: Anthony David Parsons
Publisher:
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 91
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Joan Phipson
Publisher:
Published: 1977
Total Pages: 183
ISBN-13: 9780590721738
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Patti Werner Hillenius
Publisher: Royal Fireworks Publishing Company
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780880923750
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJavier and Lucas, best friends, live in a little village in the mountains of Mexico. Javier learned to capture and tame birds from his father, now deceased. Javier is the man of the house and helps his mother and little brothers by selling birds at the market. This leads to his unwitting involvement with a ring of bird smugglers. Diego Vargas, the ring leader, is also exploiting the townspeople of Santa Elena over their water rights. Javier refuses to listen to warnings about Diego, wanting to believe him a bird fancier and friend. But, when Javier's own beloved parrot, Clown, is taken by the smugglers and almost lost forever, Javier sees clearly his mistake and what he must do to rectify it. Events lead Javier and Lucas to a wild ride in a pickup truck and assisting the police in a raid at the smuggler's nest. The boys play a major role in smashing the smuggling ring. With Diego's imprisonment, the town gets back its rights to the water source that Diego has controlled. Thousands of exotic birds like macaws and parrots are brought into the United States yearly and fetch large sums at specialty pet stores. Many of these birds are brought across the border illegally. Who catches the birds? How are they smuggled? This story is based on some of the answers the author discovered in her research.
Author: Joan Phipson
Publisher:
Published: 1977
Total Pages: 183
ISBN-13: 9781863300179
DOWNLOAD EBOOK13 yr old Margaret is appalled to learn that drugged birds are smuggled out of Australia and sold o/seas. Later she gets a chance to do something about it.
Author: Matthew Gavin Frank
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
Published: 2021-02-23
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 1631496034
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Unforgettable. . . . An outstanding adventure in its lyrical, utterly compelling, and heartbreaking investigations of the world of diamond smuggling.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil For nearly eighty years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed “overmined” and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air. Entering Die Sperrgebiet (“The Forbidden Zone”) is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing—even eager—to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It’s a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes. For this, Msizi blames “Mr. Lester,” an evil tall-tale figure of mythic proportions. From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth, through the “halfway” desert, to Kleinzee’s shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town. Interwoven throughout this obsessive quest are epic legends in which pigeons and diamonds intersect, such as that of Krishna’s famed diamond Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light, and that of the Cherokee serpent Uktena. In these strange connections, where truth forever tangles with the lore of centuries past, Frank is able to contextualize the personal grief that sent him, with his wife Louisa in the passenger seat, on this enlightening journey across parched lands. Blending elements of reportage, memoir, and incantation, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a rare and remarkable portrait of exploitation and greed in one of the most dangerous areas of coastal South Africa. With his sovereign prose and insatiable curiosity, Matthew Gavin Frank “reminds us that the world is a place of wonder if only we look” (Toby Muse).
Author: Stan Zimmerman
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2012-10-23
Total Pages: 150
ISBN-13: 161423356X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy Florida has been a smuggler’s paradise for centuries—and how traffic in everything from weapons to exotic flowers has shaped the state’s history. Amateur smugglers may sneak a box of Cuban cigars into the U.S. here and there—but in the big picture, untaxed and untraced commerce, aka contraband, is a trillion-dollar-per-year global business. New technologies to discover and curb smuggling are met by equally well-equipped perpetrators, determined to stay below the radar. With its long coastline, hundreds of remote landing strips, and airports clogged with sun-seeking tourists, Florida is a superhighway of smuggling. It is easy to move illegal goods like weapons, drugs, slaves, exotic birds and flowers, all while avoiding the best efforts of U.S. and international customs authorities. Who does this smuggling? Well one Florida governor and the wife of another, for starters. Everyone from hardscrabble commercial fishermen, Spanish explorers, Mafia mobsters, crew chiefs for fruit pickers, respected attorneys—and even one Florida governor and the wife of another. This fascinating history covers the role of smuggling in Florida history, including its discovery and settlement, the Seminole Wars, and the Civil War. With stories of land booms, money laundering, drug runners, and more, this is a book that leaves no stone unturned—or suitcase unopened
Author: Harris Tobias
Publisher: Harris Tobias
Published: 2009-08-16
Total Pages: 350
ISBN-13: 145240156X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNative American Fish & Wildlife Investigator, Rhoda Deerwalker, finds more than she bargained for when a routine bird smuggling case turns deadly. Promoted to head of security she stumbles on a survivalist cult, a terrorist plot, and her roots as a Native American. Along the way she also finds romance. It's an exciting read from beginning to end.
Author: Georgann B. Johnston
Publisher:
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Judy Diamond
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 1999-01-10
Total Pages: 248
ISBN-13: 0520920805
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe kea, a crow-sized parrot that lives in the rugged mountains of New Zealand, is considered by some a playful comic and by others a vicious killer. Its true character is a mystery that biologists have debated for more than a century. Judy Diamond and Alan Bond have written a comprehensive account of the kea's contradictory nature, and their conclusions cast new light on the origins of behavioral flexibility and the problem of species survival in human environments everywhere. New Zealand's geological remoteness has made the country home to a bizarre assemblage of plants and animals that are wholly unlike anything found elsewhere. Keas are native only to the South Island, breeding high in the rigorous, unforgiving environment of the Southern Alps. Bold, curious, and ingeniously destructive, keas have a complex social system that includes extensive play behavior. Like coyotes, crows, and humans, keas are "open-program" animals with an unusual ability to learn and to create new solutions to whatever problems they encounter. Diamond and Bond present the kea's story from historical and contemporary perspectives and include observations from their years of field work. A comparison of the kea's behavior and ecology with that of its closest relative, the kaka of New Zealand's lowland rain forests, yields insights into the origins of the kea's extraordinary adaptability. The authors conclude that the kea's high level of sociality is a key factor in the flexible lifestyle that probably evolved in response to the alpine habitat's unreliable food resources and has allowed the bird to survive the extermination of much of its original ecosystem. But adaptability has its limits, as the authors make clear when describing present-day interactions between keas and humans and the attempts to achieve a peaceful coexistence.
Author: Sally Farrell Odgers
Publisher:
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 94
ISBN-13: 9780868966564
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNovelisation of the TV series. Skippy is on the trail of bird smugglers. Some coloured photos from TV. 9-11 yrs.