From "Simon Bogdan: The Life and Times of a Poacher "

Ingenuity -- that's what Bogdan brought to the game. Men had mined the earth and slaughtered beasts for eons looking for economic gain, continents and kingdoms shifting and clashing over elephants' ivory or the fashionable pelts of a cheetah which would make a fetching cummerbund. There was never a shortage of individuals willing to risk life and limb in the pursuit of exotic goods from the natural world -- women needed their peacock feathers for household chores. Asiatics needed their ground tiger penis for the sex act. These poachers were great men.

But in the personage of Bogdan was a man, an imposing figure, prematurely bald but with strident voice, so dedicated to the art of poaching that it became less an economic undertaking and something instead approaching religious mania. For Simon Bogdan, poaching was an all-encompassing fixation, and like others who devote their entire beings to a pursuit, they cannot help but alter the course of the field which is their passion.

Also, Bogdan hated animals.

He made his mark through the use of new techniques, ones that on first impression appeared pointless and driven by compulsion. After the fact, given more time to consider the techniques, one usually would concluded that yes, the techniques were indeed pointless and driven by compulsion.

But they certainly were creative.

Simon Bogdan was the first poacher to use baby seals as clubs, usually for the purpose of beating dolphins to death. The practice -- "Blopping" as Bogdan christened it -- was the first that drew international attention to Bogdan, anointing him as the leading practitioner of Expressive Poaching, an offshoot of the sweet science many now attribute mainly to Bogdan. When traditional poachers -- "Livingstons" -- failed to see the need for such techniques, finding them both cruel and counterproductive to making an eventual profit, Bogdan would laugh, saying he did such things because he "liked the sound it made."

In the late seventies, Bogdan was contracted by OPEC -- a first for a poacher -- to look for alternative oil sources within the animal kingdom. OPEC felt that should they find sources before the countries that had become dependent on them for fuel, they would have secured yet another section of a rapidly shrinking supply source. It was basic economics.

With OPEC's blessing, Bogdan began an international campaign of animal oil-drilling. He drilled for oil in dolphins off the coast of New Zealand. He drilled for oil in lemurs. He enjoyed drilling in leopards -- Barbary Leopards in Morocco, Snow Leopards in Tibet -- the more endangered the better as OPEC had rationalized that a source that was gone from the world forever was one more that its dependents could not get their hands on.

"I understand some people think I'm a monster," Bogdan famously stated, "and they are more than entitled to their opinions. I see myself as nothing more than an artist working in a medium that might be little more controversial than what most people are used to. For that I will not apologize."

"And what many people do not realize is that I have been a lacto-ovo-vegan for the last ten years."