The state’s ecology is a kind of urban legend come true—the old alligator-flushed-down-the-toilet story, with a thousand species. Illustration by Charles Burns

When I first read this article about the downstream problems of the pet trade, I was living in India and learning about efforts to reduce the poaching crisis of wild animals being transported eastward as well as westward. Florida seemed a long way away and the problem Bilger described was a crisis, for sure, but it bordered on sounding, for lack of a better term, exotic. And maybe worthy of closer observation?

The Legal ‘Pet-Poaching’ Problem

It’s easy to spot a wild parrot in Miami, as in San Francisco, San Diego, and several other metropolitan areas in the U.S. But in Florida…