Peter Steinhart

Peter Steinhart has been a contributer to Audubon magazine for many years.

One of life's curiosities is that a large number of creatures live on the edge of things, on the seams that knit together forest and meadow, ocean and continent, river and woodland. Audubon magazine, July, 1980.

In Arizona, there were, in 1979, ninety arrests for cactus-napping. According to Richard Countryman, who heads a small force of cactus wardens, the illegal trade has led to seven homicides, including the murder of a witness he had lined up to testify against the poachers. Audubon magazine, November, 1982.

A bear's gall bladder is worth $3,000 in Korea, a protected falcon $20,000 in an Arab country, deer antlers up to $1,500 in Asia, a stuffed polar bear $10,000 at home, a double war bonnet of eagle feathers $7,000, a contraband gila monster $200. Cactus rustlers do a $500,000 trade in the southwest each year. Ibid.