The Dragon Behind the Glass

A riveting journey into the bizarre world of the Asian arowana or dragon fish the worlds most expensive aquarium fishreveals a surprising history with profound implications for the future of wild animals and human beings alike. The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other: a powerful predator dating to the age of the dinosaurs. Treasured as a status symbol believed to bring good luck, the Asian arowana is bred on high-security farms in Southeast Asia and sold by the hundreds of thousands each year. In the United States, however, its protected by the Endangered Species Act and illegal to bring into the countrythough it remains the object of a thriving black market. From the South Bronx to Singapore, journalist Emily Voigt follows the trail of the fish, ultimately embarking on a years-long quest to find the arowana in the wild, venturing deep into some of the last remaining tropical wildernesses on earth. In an age when freshwater fish now comprise one of the most rapidly vanishing groups of animals on the planet, Voigt unearths a paradoxical truth behind the dragon fishs rise to fameone that calls into question how we protect the worlds rarest species. An elegant exploration of the human conquest of nature, The Dragon Behind the Glass revels in the sheer wonder of lifes diversity and lays bare our deepest desireto hold onto what is wild.