Conference Panel: Circulation in Times of Crisis, AAS 2013 The Internet has increasingly condensed and connected global flows of people, information and objects across mobile and dynamic open social structures. These structures have become difficult to research using existing concepts and research methods due to their digitally-augmented and global nature. Amongst people with reptile and amphibian interests, this global connectivity has facilitated both emancipating and abusive outcomes for people, their passions and the animals that they love, covet and objectify. For this interest group, social activism through the conservation movement has been augmented and connected at a global level. However, through these same channels, so too has the connection of socially liminal and illegal spaces. Consequently, the black market pet trade in reptiles and amphibians has been augmented and made less visible to existing research methods and approaches This paper develops the concept of social ecology as an approach for researching open social forms that are global and digitally-mediated. The case study draws upon findings from mixed-methods research involving participant observation across 14 countries, 90 in person interviews and an online survey across 47 countries and 1593 respondents. I present a case study of mediated social actions amongst people with reptile and amphibian interests that facilitate the flow of the global black market trade of reptiles and amphibians. This case study examines the morphing legality and movement of these animals through the social networks of the Herper community.

1. The emergence of open
social systems
Using the social ecology approach to examine the
black market reptile and amphibian trade.

2. Incentives
“There is a black market for poison dart frogs. These had caused
the extinction of local populations in Costa Rica. People from
different places in Europe go to Costa Rica and they capture lots
of frogs and they take them back to Europe in the worst
conditions in small plastic bottles. Most of them don’t even make
the trip. […]
I heard in the news that they had arrested some smugglers. So I
started researching a little bit and found out in magazines that
people in Europe and other places pay astronomical amounts of
money for things that most of the people in Costa Rica wouldn’t
even give a dime. I mean $500 ten to fifteen years ago for people
in Costa Rica was an incredible amount of money. So that looked
like an interesting possibility.”
[Neto, mid 40s, academic, previously an owner of an amphibian farm]

3. Overview
• The proliferation of private trading online.
• Self directed networking and the internet.
• Social networks for exchange
• Mosaics of legislation facilitate reptile
laundering.
• Digital dualism renders these activities
invisible.
• An ecological approach to studying open
social structures.

4. The home as hub
“To be honest, it hadn’t even really crossed my mind
until I had an overseas reptile keeper stay with me.
He brought with him videos of his collections and
animals back home. And he put this video on telly
and my jaw hit the ground.
The video starts, he walks into this room and flips
the lid up on this box. A big black and white cobra
rears up on her clutch of eggs. She’s hoodin’ out and
there’s rattlesnakes going off and I just thought,
‘This stuff is amazing’.”
[Dave, mid 30s, amateur herpetologist]

5. “The wildest 5 years of my life”
early 90s
During the early ’90s, as the Internet became more socially
dispersed and adopted. Dave was hanging out with his herps and
growing marijuana.
forums
He spent his spare time online and meeting other herp people from
around the world in the reptile forums.
in-person
Dave gains access to exotic reptiles by an online connection from
Germany who came and stay with him.
travel
private
collections
trade
conviction
He and his business associate go to Europe and visit private
collections through the networks that they had established online.
They are approached many times to smuggle Australian reptiles
into the European market.
Dave sets this up with animals he has bred and poached and they
exchanged reptiles in and out of Australia through the post in a
doll box.
Dave gets a visit from the police due to his business partner’s
criminal connections. His collection of exotics at that time was
extensive, the extent of which was a surprise to law enforcement.

6. Self-directed networking
“That’s a small world. We all know each other, of course. In France,
in Europe, in the world. When I started, I had friends in Togo
rearing the ball pythons. I had friends in Canada, which was a
famous Herper at that time. I had friends in the US also… I was a
member of some association. It gave access to the information and
magazines and newsletter and so on. That was helpful.”
[Adrien, mid 30s, Reptile pet shop owner, a European hub]
Not introduced to interest by anyone
53% (N=822)
Median hours online
15 hrs
*in the last 7 days (reptile related)
Know most people they talk to online
39.9% (N=627)
23 % (N=361) disagreed with this. Figures
similar for being known by others online
Participation in voluntary organisations
37.7% (N=601)
average of 1 herp soc membership
Median number of strong ties
5
A high number for a single portfolio of
participation
Median number of weak ties
10
*higher numbers correlate with higher internet
use

7. Community boundaries
These results suggest that, for the sample, the Herper network is experienced as an
open social structure that is mediated by strong and weak social ties rather than
traditional closed-group structures with distinct social boundaries
Text

8. Finding networks of
exchange
“The community has a lot of nodes, and each
person in that community is like a spider with
sort of eight legs linking up to other nodes. But
you have to hit the right node because there’s a
lot of empty space between the nodes, and you
cannot…you just don’t make the right links if
you don’t know the right people. And it can
take a lot of time to find the right contact.”
[Daniel, late 40s, academic, talking about his mission to source crocodile embryos from
Herpers]

9. Trust
“In the reptile game, [amongst private keepers] there is so much
backstabbing going on. That everybody’s got to know everybody
else’s business and nobody wants everyone else to know your
business. Everyone’s really, really untrusting of everybody else.
Getting to know people is quite difficult. “
[Darren, late 20s, private keeper]

10. Socio-legal boundaries
“But perhaps there is more criminal herpetophiles in Norway, because
if you are a normal person who loves reptiles and you have a job that
requires that you have a clean criminal record, then you won’t risk
your job over a few geckos. So you will refrain from keeping them.
4
If you follow this scale, you have people who care a lot for the law,
people who respect a law, people who almost respect the law and keep
geckos maybe, and people who don’t respect the law. In a normal
country where reptiles are legal you’ve got all of these types keeping
reptiles and most of them are just normal people. But in Norway, you
have cut off people that respect the law and only people who follow
ethical rules for example over government rules, perhaps they will
keep geckos, or people who pretty much don’t care for the law.”
[Sven, mid 30s, activist and amateur Herper, criminal record for keeping geckos and drug
dealing]

11. reptile laundering
illegal
grey zone
legal

12. A cultural problem?
“We have a cultural problem that arose from the fact that
for decades, from 1974 until the 1990s, it was illegal to
keep reptiles. People who kept reptiles were rigorously
pursued. There’s a whole generation of people who grew
up equating keeping wildlife as bad for the environment.
This is being exacerbated still because it’s a newsworthy
situation when people are busted with [illegal] reptiles
and drugs, usually together.”
[Lionel, late 40s, owner of a reptile park]

13. Limits of digital dualism
• Privileging either in-person interaction (place based) or virtual
interaction (CMC) in analysis reduces the ability to follow social
activity in its synchronous and asynchronous formats.
• Global connectivity, while a small percentage of most
interactions, has as substantial impact upon most Herpers as do
local actions. Focusing on one or the other fades out of view the
ability of the illicit pet trade to launder and locate its markets.
• Focusing on geographically fixed locations (locales and nations)
limits understanding of the scope and reach of networks that
operate over open social structures.

14. the social ecology approach
• Open social structures are identifiable through their foci of activity
(Feld) and operate as digital formations (Latham & Sassen) that have
an idiosyncratic communicative ecology (Hearn & Foth).
• Protoboundaries are generated through internal divisions (Abbott) &
external boundaries are porous.
• Cohesion & continuity are created through overlapping values, social
heterogeneity, a mediating culture and system retention.
• Social space is constituted through digital networks, organisational
affiliations and the interconnectivity of physical locations.
• Circulation is facilitated by CMC, mobile reputations, strong and
weak social ties, legislative mosaics, the spatiality of social networks,
international mobility, network hubs and consumption cultures.