Animal Investigators: How the World's First Wildlife Forensics Lab Is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species

This book is a really wonderful read. Like the old Sherlock Holmes stories, the solution of these mysteries revolves around a wide spectrum of topics - including criminology, anthropology, animal behavior, chemistry, and biology. The unfortunate backdrop is the astounding scale of international wildlife and animal parts trafficking. This book highlights one aspect of combating this complex problem.

I work at a local bookstore and was excited to see this book cross the path of the store manager. I immediately grabbed a copy and began reading. To say that I could not put it down is an understatement. I found it beautifully written from beginning to end and was enthralled by the mysteries as they unraveled. A book like this is long overdue. The read was interesting, informative and surprising. Laurel Neme has done her research! I especially appreciated lens with which the book was written: the criminology behind the poaching of wildlife. "Animal Investigators" presented all the information I was looking for and left me hoping for more books like it. I strongly recommend it!

The article in Time drove me to buy the book immediately and I was not disappointed at all. Quite the contrary. A fantastic read on a very important and oft neglected subject. The writer has managed to give an extraordinarily compelling account of investigations conducted by incredible scientists. The science is easily understood and the processes are engrossing. A really good read that kept me up very late. Well done.

I've purchased "Animal Investigators" after reading a good review on "New Scientist" magazine, and I have to say that it's an excellent read. It opens your eyes on something which is "invisible" for all of us - provided we don't work in wildlife protection, of course - and it affects the world on a huge scale. Millions of animals of protected species are traded each year around the world. If they are not directly killed to obtain products as "Chinese medicine" remedies or ornaments, the majority of the ones which are "hiddenly" transported dies for the bad conditions of transport. The US Congress in 2008 said that this illegal practices are threatening of extinction some species. And there is so little "social alarm" that the enforcers of law have to struggle with lack of funding and of personnell. REading this book will show you how a bunch of science experts fight all this. And improve the world: our world.