Photos of smuggler caught with hummingbirds in underwear

Look at these cute photos of hummingbirds in a smuggler's underwear.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin

oh for fuck’s sake.
- http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art
  
  You read my mind, Xeni! :)
Huwman

Don’t try this with birds of prey.
RadioSilence

Well I’d heard of Budgie Smugglers but I thought it was more metaphorical than literal :D

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=budgie+smugglers
Teirhan

THEY AREN’T CUTE. They’re depressing.

(some of) those hummingbirds are (probably) dead, yo. :(

well, ok, so they’re cute too. but my first response is “:(” not “d’aww”
- lknope
  
  Why would someone smuggle dead hummingbirds?
  - Teirhan
    
    why would the cops pose with the rack of hummingbirds if they were still alive? wouldn’t they be trying to free them?
    
    EDIT: after doing five minutes of research i see that many do get smuggled like this while live, but that many of them are smothered as it is difficult for them to breathe when wrapped like this. so i will revise my comment to “some of those birds are (probably) dead, yo!”
    - Comman Dax
      
      Free them where? Do you know what kind of chaos would ensue if a couple dozen hummingbirds were released indoors? I imagine they’re alive, or they wouldn’t be so carefully bound and kept warm with body heat. Sensible cops would wait until the animal experts showed up to relieve them of their weird burden.
  - RadioSilence
    
    and keep their wings secured but their heads free?
  - IsabellaClark
    
    They weren’t dead when the trip began. They died in his pants.
dascritch

In the link, it seems officers have the French Customs uniform
http://profiles.google.com/murso74 Matthew Urso

no pecker jokes?
Private Private

If you come to point in your life where you find yourself with a crotch full of kidnapped hummingbirds, I think you need to seriously examine your purpose of remaining on this planet. You are, at that point, merely an oxygen thief.
http://twitter.com/Gryffinator Gryffinator

I’m not so sure they’re dead, looking closely, but I could be wrong. Why would this scumbag be doing this? To sell them? I’d no idea there was a pet market for them. Besides I believe they are protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Act.
- RadioSilence
  
  “Besides I believe they are protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Act.”
  which is why he’s resorted to shoving them down his crotch!
  - http://twitter.com/Gryffinator Gryffinator
    
    Duh. Sorry I was suffering visual shock and couldn’t think clearly.
- Sam Feinson
  
  What are you, a freakin’ park ranger, now?
  - TheMudshark
    
    Also, let’s not forget – let’s *not* forget, Dude – that keeping
    wildlife, small birds, for uh, domestic, you know, within your pants – that aint legal either.
  - http://twitter.com/Gryffinator Gryffinator
    
    No, but I do enjoy dressing up as one on weekends.
Kaffenated

Is that a hummingbird in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Despite the gallows humor, that is freaking depressing as hell.
petertrepan

I’ll bet his gait gave him away.
- Lobster
  
  He has a wide stance!
  
  Wow, been a while since I’ve been able to use that one.
- kP
  
  oh (little) brother….
  - petertrepan
    
    oh (little) brother….
    
    Ha! Perhaps the old rock in the shoe trick isn’t effective any more, and he had to fall back on the old crotch full of hummingbirds trick.
Lobster

I could use a unicorn chaser.
freshacconci

a) I hope they’re okay; and b) I hope they used those beaks during their trip
scifijazznik

On the plus side, this photo cheered Anthony Weiner up.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Betcha they were going to be turned into boner medicine, or boiled alive for some exotic soup.
Ramone

What a horrible way to die! Pressed against giant sweaty genitals!
- thisisnotatest
  
  You speak for yourself.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Tim-Escobedo/1043685245 Tim Escobedo
  
  I dunno. Under the right circumstances, it sounds like maybe the best way to die.
Skye MacLeod

awful
http://www.facebook.com/toshfieldsend Tosh Fieldsend

surprised at the lack of hummer jokes.
CSBD

I really wish airports had a convenient execution apparatus in place for people who smuggle animals. I don’t really care about drugs but this really pisses me off.
Ben Wilson

Look at it. Just look at it.
http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker

Quick poll: If the guy sitting next to you on an international flight had a cache of hummingbirds down his crotch, do you think you would be able to guess what his problem was?

(This poll question assumes that it would be fairly obvious that he has *some* kind of problem.)
- TooGoodToCheck
  
  heck no! Honestly, even if the guy told me, “Actually, I fidget a lot because I have small birds in my pants”, my assumption would be that he’s out of his tree.
  
  birds in the pants is so far out of my experience, I would never have guessed it.
- PhosPhorious
  
  The humming might give it away.
samanthalockard

really?! the poor hummingbirds. that looks like one nasty, dirty pair of briefs.
http://www.facebook.com/Theismisacrime Stephen Bullock

You couldn’t pay me to put my “business” near a bunch of bird beaks.
Tom Mulcahy

Are you sure those birds aren’t woodpeckers?
http://www.facebook.com/nickgold2012 Nick Gold

Lotta peckers in that picture.
petertrepan

A more conscientious smuggler would also have carried a cat, in case he had to get rid of evidence.
Gainclone

We seem to be neglecting the most important issue here. WHY SMUGGLE A HUMMINGBIRD AT ALL? What are they to be used for?
- Teirhan
  
  sell ‘em, for their feathers, maybe? I don’t know if there’s a thing for that any more, though.
- http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art
  
  Exactly!
  We have hummingbirds here in NY. See them every day at the feeder on our porch. What’s the need to smuggle them?
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Guess others may not be so fortunate. Even in the Southern California trailer park of my youth, we’d see them all over the honeysuckle. And I just ducked a couple of them outside my Pasadena back porch a couple weeks ago.
    
    They’re kinda cute and all, but they seem like an odd thing to covet. Black markets are often weird things.
    
    But you know what would have really made this an epic picture? Had it been large enough to show the smuggler’s face as well. Never mind the identification purposes; as long as we’re gonna see some dipshit get busted for smuggling fowl, I wanna see the expression on his face when Johnny Law snaps the incriminating picture, complete with outstretched bird-filled drawers, and announces it’s going straight up onto the higher-profile Internet.
    
    Smile, birdballs!
Guest

Please tell me that thick white strand sticking out of the ball sac area isn’t a hummingbird’s tongue! Now that’s depressing.

http://www.google.com/search?q=photos+of+hummingbird+tongues&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&rlz=1I7ADRA_enUS405&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=peuATrvaMszUiALe_PiVDQ&ved=0CCkQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=596
- lewis_stoole
  
  i agree, that had better not be a tongue, but i would say it is more likely a stray thread as you will see white thread strands protruding from the captivity holes and elsewhere on this guy’ s home made hummingbird holder.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QN6WUG7WMBDAGUPFVSJ6HJAS2A Darth

Shweddy balls!
Finnagain

New shit has come to light, Man.

“New
Shit Has Come to Light”: Information Seeking Behavior in The Big
Lebowski – DILL – 2011 – The Journal of Popular Culture – Wiley Online
Library http://bit.ly/nUHDm9
Gainclone

I just can’t imagine why somebody would want to smuggle hummingbirds. It’s kind of blowing my mind a little bit. To have hummingbirds stashed in a special hummingbird caddy in your pants; to be CAUGHT while concealing them from the authorities… it’s all too absurd. I feel confused and bewildered. I feel… faint.
tmccartney66

I imagine the birds felt a little faint as well.
Antinous / Moderator

The birds look pretty alive and perky to me. If you follow the chain of links, you can see them individually wrapped.
- BarBarSeven
  
  …you can see them individually wrapped.
  
  I prefer my hummingbirds individually wrapped! Es muy delicioso!
  
  Seriously, when is the Steven Soderberg going to make a film of this? A film simply called “Smuggle.”
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski
  
  You’d look perky too, if you were desperate to escape from a horrendous, life-threatening imprisonment.
Jim Phelps

He should serve jail in time inside someone else’s used underwear. They should just send it to his cell to be taped over his head before it goes to the laundry. ”90 days solitary confinement in dirty underwear.”
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=542921054 Steve Schnier

In my entire life, I’ve seen one – maybe two hummingbirds in the wild. I can’t imagine how you’d even go about catching them – let alone why. And those beaks look awfully pointy. All things considered, this doesn’t appear to be a viable business venture.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

Via a quick dip into the google,

http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/laws.php

Regarding the illegal trade in protected and endangered bird species, I always thought the Michael Douglas character in Romancing the Stone was even more of a tool than most took him for, once you work through what he was doing for a living before the bus freed his stock. I didn’t get the feeling most caught that.
EH

To be sure, hummingbirds are pretty cool and it would be neat to have some as pets.
inedible

I seem to recall hummingbirds have really high metabolisms and they need to eat like every ten minutes or they die. I guess this guy planned on spending the entire flight in the bathroom with an eyedropper of sugar water.
Miles de Courcy

a bird in the hand is worth a few in the bush
Rtarara

Poor birds! Does anyone know what happened to them? Did they get to go somewhere nice? I’m really hoping so, they deserve a nice life after having to take an international flight in someone’s underwear.
- futnuh
  
  The surviving birds were flown back to French Guyana in PETA spokesmodel Christy Turlington’s underwear.
thivai

Another poor SOB tweeting his junk…
herartsheloves

The ultimate sad cute… a bit more sad than cute.

Dear Crazy People,

Please stop stuffing animals down your pants.
deadbot

At least the birds don’t appear to have given the smuggler an erection.

Who BUYS hummingbirds anyway?
EH

If only they were for the purposes of gambling.
Strato Head

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird

“Hummingbirds are capable of slowing down their metabolism at night, or
any other time food is not readily available. They enter a hibernation-like state known as torpor.
During torpor, the heart rate and rate of breathing are both slowed
dramatically (the heart rate to roughly 50 to 180 beats per minute),
reducing the need for food.”

animal cruelty aside… that is a lot of really sharp beaks right next to that dudes junk.
bobaldo

What kind of guy goes up to another guy, pulls his pants open and takes a picture? He was just going about his business smuggling Hummingbirds when this freak turns up.
Baldhead

Would not consider “next to junk” a good place for those beaks
http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop

Does this fall into Rule 34 territory?
http://twitter.com/cicadamania Cicada Mania

Li’l Peckers!
BarBarSeven

Hey folks, I made this better. YOU ARE WELCOME!!!
deadbot

Wait a minute, I think I was at this party.
jennybean42

More info here: https://finchwench.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/hummerbummer/
It doesn’t say what happened to those particular birds, but in general smugglers apparently expect a 50 percent mortality rate.
Unicorn chaser, please
Digilante

Hummingbirds are simply beautiful, and I spent many an hour watching them when I lived in Africa. Smuggling is terrible yes, etc, etc, I agree with all the readers. However, could this issue not be solved, or at least addressed, in a constructive manner? Numerous countries have had great success with handling drug issues by decriminalising, educating, taxing, managing. Could this not be done here? Suppose I want a hummingbird: I must pass appropriate courses, I must obtain authorisation, based on an inspection of my home or whatever environment, I must pay for a license, I must be listed on a database of owners, I must cooperate with local zoos or similar institutions when necessary, and so forth. Now I have no pets, as I believe that no animal should be kept in captivity, even the cats that boingboingers wet themselves over, but seriously, could this not be a way to manage the problem to some degree?
- bklynchris
  
  WE ALL want to know. Why would you want a hummingbird?! Because the thought of having one as a pet (which would require the bird lives in captivity) makes no sense, medicinal seems the only crazy logic answer?!
- http://www.aculei.net/~eredien/ CP-S
  
  In America, and many other countries, to keep and/or rehabilitate wildlife you do need a license, which generally involves permits, courses, and state/local databases of people with that license. It is illegal to keep birds and other wildlife without these permits. If these people had the right permits, those birds would be shipped in an appropriate cage with appropriate permits.
  
  This is true to some extent even with domesticated animals, depending on where you go–to adopt my cat, I signed a contract with the adoption agency promising to give it back to them if for some reason I could not take care of it.
  
  You are looking at the mechanism–smuggling–people use when they don’t want to deal with the permits–there’s always going to be a market for people who want something they could in theory get legally but won’t or can’t get legally (if it’s just a normal hummingbird, a captive wildlife permit; if it’s some kind of endangered species, basically being some kind of zookeeper or researcher would be the only legal way to get access to these animals).
  
  It’s not that they don’t know about the permits–they know, and this is how they get around it. The wildlife enforcement people are cops–that’s why they arrest you after they find, say, hummingbirds smuggled in your underwear. (The reason they are in the underwear, I guess, is because it is warm and dark. The birds will be warm and also not move as much or have as many energy needs as they are probably asleep.)
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

They should release this guy’s name and a photo of his face. The ensuing embarrassment should be almost enough punishment.
zombiebob

That dude’s got some REAL balls putting those Hypo-beaked terrors so near his balls
zombiebob

Are we sure this wasn’t some ill-conceived amateur attempt at DIY gender reassignment surgery?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Sara-H/17003856 Sara H

“Did it have to be dirty laundry?”

“No.”
bobcorrigan

“I wasn’t smuggling them. I was *snuggling* them.”
filecabinet

I think one of the punishments for anyone found guilty of wildlife smuggling is a permanent revokation of their passports.

This would have to be part of an international agreement such as CITES. No, it wouldn’t solve the problem, but it would be an important part of a solution.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Lael-Lee/687427820 Lael Lee

Good thing it wasn’t Wood Peckers
http://www.facebook.com/jamiesueaustin Jamie Sue

As punishment he will be required to smuggle wolverines in his panties.
tylerkaraszewski

There are *lots* of types of hummingbirds. All of them live in the Americas. The most spectacular of which do not live in New York or wherever it is in the US that you are. They live in the jungles of central and south America.

People don’t want them as pets like they want dogs as pets, they want them like they want leopards as pets. Because they’re rare and exotic and illegal to have. Also, seeing as they don’t live in Europe, Asia or Africa, they’re even more of a rarity there.

The article doesn’t say where this person was going from ,but he wasn’t catching Anna’s hummingbirds in Southern California and taking them to Denver. He was catching rare and exotic species in French Guiana and transporting them probably to Asia or Europe to sell to rich and eccentric collectors for high prices.
- Donald Petersen
  
  they want them like they want leopards as pets.
  
  Well, sure. It kinda figures that the guy wouldn’t be smuggling the equivalent of downtown pigeons.
  
  But you’re surely on the nose when you say the collectors must be “eccentric.” Pet leopards are kinda… well, that’s a pretty obvious form of Evil Kingpin showoffery. Brightly-colored hummingbirds? Somehow that seems to lack the zazz that I’d expect in an illegal pet.
  - http://www.aculei.net/~eredien/ CP-S
    
    There is a huge international market in illegal reptile smuggling (which is one of the reasons why I buy reptiles bred from local reptile breeders rather than pet stores, where it is not clear where the original lizards came from (imported/wild-caught vs. captive bred). Why is that, since most people do not think of reptiles as cute pets?
    
    I would bet that people with the money and/or interest to smuggle animals illegally and keep them as pets don’t often think about these animals as “animals,” whether they are colorful birds, monkeys, tigers, or some kind of rare turtle. It’s like wanting to have the newest apple OS right when it comes out, except for live snow leopards rather than the software version.
    
    They are, rather, possessions to show the money, secret knowledge (‘I got away with smuggling this!’) and status of the owner, rather than animals that have needs that should be met and respected….in that sense it almost doesn’t matter much which animal(s) get smuggled for most of these people. I am sure there are people who prefer rare cats rather than, say, wolves, but like for any domestic dog or cat owner, that’s probably mostly an aesthetic choice on the part of the animal owner. I mean, if they just wanted a pet bird, they could get one, or if they wanted to work with wildlife, they could be a rehabilitator.
    
    There is a really good, sad, in-depth article about wildlife smuggling from the national parks of Malaysia here, which talks more about the kinds of animals that get smuggled internationally.
    
    http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/asian-wildlife/christy-text
- apoxia
  
  I totally agree with tylerkaraszewski. Humming birds may seem pedestrian and unimportant to some from the US, but we don’t have them in New Zealand. We don’t have squirrels either and I have spent time enjoying both hummingbirds and squirrels on visits to the US. I can totally see why someone might want to own a few beautiful humming birds, or a squirrel for that for that matter.
cdh1971

lol…I used to do this – until I figured out the girls just thought it was creepy.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

It just occurred to me that maybe they weren’t destined for ownership as exotic pets… it could be an asian pharmacy thing. I would not be surprised to see some claim of magical energy elixirs or other noxious scam.
pjk

ah wildlife smuggling… there’s big money in it! and dollars to donuts this guy got out with a slap on the wrist… punishment for this kind of stuff is basically non-existent in most parts. this is a good piece on one of the best wildlife smugglers … http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/12/28/the_serpent_king?page=full
derek prowse

” A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush…”
Comman Dax

There are three different species of hummingbirds that come every day to feed on the salvias I have planted outside the windows of my house here in Los Angeles. If you stand very still for a while near the sage, they might fly so close that you can feel the edges of their wings brushing your skin. Like living jewels in green, blue and copper, they dart faster than the eye can see and stop on a dime, hovering in mid-air. They’re little miracles.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  They’re year-rounders here in Palm Springs (unlike the Canadians). They’re one of the most common birds here. Also sufficiently immune to humankind that you can get to know them quite well.
http://twitter.com/funebrilho suzy q

Pervert!
Swizzlebat

Maybe Mark, with his excellent knowledge of the old Time-Life Science series would remember the picture in one of those books of a bunch of hummingbirds stashed– in a similar manner– inside a smuggler’s suitcase? (It seems like a better fate than being stashed next to smuggler’s junk.)I couldn’t figure out 40 years ago why you’d want to smuggle a hummingbird, but there must still be a (sad and depressing) reason for it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1428313809 Dustin Driver

Humming birds can be very aggressive. I’ve had several swoop me for getting too close to their mate/nest when I was hanging out in my backyard. And believe me, a humming bird strafing your head at 40 mph is pretty scary.
bobcorrigan

More on hummingbirds (family Trochilidae) from the Encyclopedia of Life: http://eol.org/pages/8021/overview