The dead birds were traded like baseball cards, with collectors establishing a clear pecking order: A batch of North American waterfowl could be had for an extinct passenger pigeon. A dozen birds—most protected under national law or international treaty—could be bartered for one threatened owl. Sometimes bird carcasses were bought for cash.

And when American collectors wanted to kill threatened birds in the wild, one Peru-based safari company, Andes Safari Peru, was willing to help them out—facilitating hunts of torrent duck, ibis, and dozens of other birds.

Court documents recently filed against one of the operators of that company, and earlier filings against multiple customers involved in illegal hunts, trades, and sales of endangered or protected species of birds, make clear that