Ferret Article Allegedly Plagiarized in Romance Lit
Paul Tolme is the author of "Toughing It Out in the Badlands," an article about black-footed ferrets that he says was plagiarized in a novel called Shadow Bear. Image Courtesy of Paul Tolme hide caption
In 2005, nature writer Paul Tolme wrote an article for Defenders of Wildlife magazine about the endangered black-footed ferrets disappearing from the North American grasslands.
In 2008, he was surprised to find that his descriptions of the small mammals had been reproduced in a steamy story of forbidden love between a pioneer woman and a Native American chief.
"First I was angry," Tomle writes in an article for Newsweek."Then I had to laugh. To see my textbook descriptions of ferrets in a bodice-ripper, as dialogue between a hunky American Indian and a lustful pioneer woman who several pages later have sex on a mossy riverbank, is the height of absurdity."