Vivid New York Times photo essay of Denver captures our endangered animal fetish

The New York Times featured the National Wildlife Property Repository in a stunning pictorial essay by photographer Tristan Spinski.

The repository holds, as the accompanying text points out, "stuffed monkeys and ivory carvings, snow leopard coats and dried seal penises, chairs with tails and lamps with hooves" and other oddities.

Where do the 1.3 million items occupying 22,000 square feet come from?

"Some items in the repository are confiscated from naive tourists, but most are part of a global trade in endangered wildlife."

It's not pretty. But you can see the photos here.