The rediscovery of the Wallace’s giant bee, a rare slice of good wildlife-related news, was splashed across media outlets around the world. Researchers hoped the local community and government would take proud ownership of the bee in order to protect it. But the conversations tailed off, the momentum spluttered. Worse, knowledge of the bee’s existence lit up a murky corner of the internet that specializes in the trade of rare animals. But the most sobering aspect of the bee-finding adventure is that even the flurry of interest surrounding the species didn’t provide it much of a reprieve.