Up to his elbows in alligators

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, memoirs, mini-biographies, law enforcement, alligators, environmentalism, everglades

Decades ago during the misnamed "sexual revolution", protests against many laws were made and we often heard the slogan, "You can't legislate morality." Though I was pretty young then, still in college, I thought, "Nonsense! We legislate nothing but morality." What is lawmaking? It is the process of defining what moral laws we care enough about to sanction (punish people for). As I watched the process unfold, as certain formerly illegal matters were legalized, and other matters were made illegal (often improperly), I came to this conclusion:

Not all that is ethical is legal.
Not all that is legal is ethical.

Fast-forward a generation or so: It has become illegal in some states or cities to call someone "him" or "her" if they prefer to be called "them" or "zhe" or "go away". It has become legal to destroy a city if your reason is "I am offended/oppressed/outraged". These are just the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. It has become illegal to practice common sense, and what was formerly criminal insanity is the "most legal".

Jeff's career was law enforcement. He was working in Florida for the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and for a good many years, he primarily caught poachers and brought them to prosecution. As chronicled in Gator County: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades by Rebecca Renner, near the end of his career he was asked to embark on an extended sting operation, going undercover. To provide only a mild spoiler (because of course he succeeded, or there'd be no book): his sting caught a ringleader, and a number of lesser figures were caught in the net. But Jeff had seen what it really means to be a poacher, and he was able to weave the net more loosely so as to avoid catching absolutely everyone who'd been involved. He had more than a minimal conscience, and he cared for being ethical more than strict legality. He also knew the conclusions I stated above.

What happens when the enforcer comes to identify with his "prey"? This is the conundrum Jeff faced as he morphed himself into a seedy-looking trying-to-do-better ne'er-do-well, someone who could pass as a newly minted alligator farmer in a countryside filled with a mix of mostly honest alligator farmers and alligator hunters, and some less than honest, and a few downright scoundrels.

A similar process transformed the author as she dug deeper and deeper into Jeff's story, and the stories of others such as Peg Brown, the most legendary of the poachers of the prior generation (she befriended his son). The book's chapters bounce around between her life growing up in Florida, being a Floridian among Floridians who had been on the land for generations. She could internalize their struggles to cope with seeing their day-to-day survival methods becoming illegalized, until in many cases their choices were to poach for a living, to move somewhere else, or to starve. She asks, several times, "How does a family live when they were barely making it and their breadwinner is now incarcerated?"

The allied question that bedeviled Jeff as his operation drew to a close was, "What becomes of children if both parents are imprisoned?" Because many of the men who worked for the ringleader would bring their wives into some of the work, such as gathering alligator eggs in "illegal" quantities. The wives knew what was going on, so they were technically complicit.

Parts of some chapters outline the stages the Everglades went through as Florida became a popular destination. The Army Corps of Engineers, in their efforts to "tame" the 'glades, actually set in motion dramatic environmental changes that led to a reduction by 95% or more of the alligator population, not only in Florida but throughout gator country. But who got blamed? People like Peg Brown. Even after the alligator population rebounded—due more to their adaptability than to the efforts of environmentalists—the poaching laws were kept or even strengthened.

The poaching, at least of alligators, doesn't seem to be wiping them out. Their numbers in every state of the deep south continue to increase. There are millions, dozens to hundreds of times as many as there were 60 years ago.

This book isn't about "the corruption of Goody Two-shoes". When the operation ended, including the deliberate overlooking of some, including the wives, Jeff appeared in court when the chief perpetrators, the ones who weren't just flouting the law but smashing it to bits, were tried. It is about how we relate to others, and the struggle it can be to understand someone with whom we fundamentally disagree. I am reminded of the most remembered line of Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."