"Where the Wild Things Are No More"

"Commerce City, Colo. -- At the National Wildlife Property Repository, only the imagination runs wild. Everything else is dead and lies on the crowded shelves of this warehouse outside Denver.

There's a Hartmann's mountain zebra, its hide a rifle case -- the souvenir of a safari to southern Africa.

There are the alligators whose skins adorn eight pairs of $2,000 Air Force 1s, the scheme of a hip-hop-inspired importer....

Held for educational purposes, future undercover operations and possible use by the Smithsonian or other museums, the items in this building represent, in the words of one agent, nothing less than 'the evil in mankind.'"

Thomas Curwen reports for the Los Angeles Times June 18, 2009.