Nick and Marta sneak into Mrs. Starch’s home. At first, the house, with its abundant taxidermy collection, is simply terrifying, but as Nick and Marta discover the point of the collection, it becomes touching and, in its own way, tragic: “‘They’re all endangered species […] That’s a panther cub, that’s a Cape Sable seaside sparrow, and that ugly thing on the wall is a shortnose sturgeon’” (137). Mrs. Starch’s “zoo for the dead” (136) is a testament to the wildlife that humans have driven off the planet. 

Twilly Spree, a character from one of Hiaasen’s earlier novels, Sick Puppy, shows up at Mrs. Starch’s house, driving her car and looking for a book by Edward Abbey. Twilly Spree appears threatening—he is muddy, roughlooking and rude—but he doesn’t harm Nick and Marta. As Twilly drops them off back in town, Nick notices that he is wearing an old-fashioned ammo belt like the creature in his video. 

In order to protect the Everglades, the US government has announced “a plan to buy up the drilling rights for oil and natural gas beneath the vast Big Cypress Preserve to protect the vanishing wetlands from future damage” (150).