Yesterday, the US Fish and Wildlife Service began slowly auctioning off 300,000 wildlife products that have been confiscated or abandoned to the government. Proceeds from the sale will be used to educate the public about wildlife trade and global conservation and pay for the care of live wildlife seized by Service enforcement officers. Funds will also be used to honor rewards for individuals who help the Service solve wildlife crimes and to support the National Eagle Repository, which makes eagle parts and feathers available for Native American religious use. (Here’s a handy Q&A .pdf on the auction.)

[The items for sale] do not include any products made from threatened and endangered species, migratory birds, eagles, marine mammals, species listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), or species that cannot be sold or traded under the laws of the exporting country. No hunting trophies or wildlife parts will be sold.

So far, among the everyday sale items like beaded jewelry and “gents ostrich leg skin leather belt,” you can find bargains guaranteed to impress guests and neighbors, such as lizard and snake skin “home decor,” a Fendi mink purse, and a “buffalo skin leather table cloth/rug.” The auction is slated to last for several months, with new bargains arriving daily.

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

4 replies on “US Fish and Wildlife Auctioning off Confiscated Goods”

  2. I wonder if they’ll be auctioning off the salmon and orca killed by the SR-520 bridge replacement or the SR-99 Billionaires Tunnel?

    Both of those will kill more fish and wildlife, as both have DOUBLE the global warming gas emissions as the infrastructure they replace, and the resulting bykill from the emissions – in a county already in VIOLATION of the new 2011 EPA global warming emissions standards – will be on a scale that will make oil dumps in Puget Sound look like NOTHING.

    Guess Microsoft ain’t that Green. Just ask Bill Gates and Paul Allen – maybe one of them will show up today at South Lake Union Armory for the SR-520 bridge public hearing? Or will they just bus in lots of corporate PR employees to lie about the FACTS?

  3. It’s especially sad because all those items are so damn ugly. If you’re going to extinguish a life, at least don’t make crap out of it.

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