The reminder of horrific illegal wildlife trade
The glass eyes stare out from the head of the tiger. Its mouth is painted a garish red, its tongue glued in place — one more victim of wildlife trafficking now sitting on a shelf in a warehouse in Colorado.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service runs the Property Repository 30km outside Denver.
About 1.5 million animals, or parts of animals, are here — lions, tigers, rhinos and elephants.
Their feet have been turned into garbage cans or holders for ashtrays, their horns into medicine to cure hangovers.
If you are unprepared, it is a shocking sight. But even knowing what is inside does not stop that initial sharp intake of breath.
Rows and rows of boots made out of cobras and iguanas, rare turtles stuffed and clutching ukuleles.
"The more endangered the species is, the trend seems to come faster, because there's more money to be made," Coleen Schaefer tells me as we walk along the stacks of dead animals.
She said elephants, rhino horns and tigers were highly sought after.
"They call them the big three because their populations are in such dire need of protection. These populations — we could see the complete extinction of elephants in our lifetime, the extinction of tigers in the wild in our lifetime. There are currently more tigers in captivity than there are in the wild," she said.
One of the saddest exhibits is a tiger foetus, pulled from the womb of its mother and stuffed and mounted on what looks like a wooden cheese board.
Wildlife trade worth between $10 to $40 billion a year
US authorities want the warehouse and its contents to stand as reminders of the vastness and vulgarness of the trade.
It is difficult to estimate the value of the global illegal trade in wildlife.
The US assistant secretary of state, William Brownfield, said it could be anywhere between $10 billion and $40 billion a year.
"Those are big numbers. We're talking about the sort of thing that actually has an impact if it's larger than the GDP of half the countries in the world," Mr Brownfield told the ABC in an interview at the State Department in Washington.
The negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have included attempts to increase the severity of the punishments and improve efforts to stamp out the trade.
But China is one of the biggest culprits and it is not part of the TPP.
Mr Brownfield was ready for the question on why there are not greater penalties against China.
"I'm not going to pinpoint one particular country," he said.
"I'm going to be fair. I'm going to say to you China is a major consumer of illegally trafficked wildlife but may I tell you the United States of America is as well.
"It is illegal but nevertheless a major market. At the end of the day we have to cooperate. If we do not cooperate we are not going to succeed."
There are several reasons why this is becoming increasingly urgent.
The number of tigers and elephants in the wild is plummeting. Supply will, tragically, eventually run out.
And it is believed terror groups are increasingly using the illegal wildlife trade to fund their activities.
"It's changing from a conservation issue to a global security issue," Ms Shaefer said.
"It's about illegal groups generating funds for terrorist activities.
"There's been known cases where they've used wildlife trafficking to fund various organisations because there's a low risk actually in trafficking endangered species.
"The sentencing and the punishment are low compared to other sources of drugs and arms for instance," she said.
Mr Brownfield cautioned against overstating the link between the trade and terrorism.
"I don't think we have to. I think the illegal wildlife trafficking is in and of itself so repulsive, so repugnant that we don't need to tie it to something else as a matter of making a point."
_Watch the full story on Lateline at 9:30pm AEDT on ABC News 24, and at 10:30pm on ABCTV.*
Morning news break – April 2
_
