Endangered Species Focus of Display
An exotic collection of fashion accessories on display at the Los Angeles Zoo on Wednesday looked as though it came straight from the upscale fashion houses of Paris.
Carefully arrayed on a conference table in the zoo’s education building were turtle-skin boots, cayman hide shoulder bags and ivory jewelry.
But this was no ordinary fashion show.
The items on display--all illegally made from endangered species--were actually seized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when overseas travelers tried to bring them into the country, said Barbara Taylor Beggs, director of the Student CITES Project, a high school-level endangered species awareness program.
Beggs brought the items to the zoo to show them to about 30 sophomores from the North Hollywood High School Zoo Magnet Program who are participating in the project. The program is a spinoff of the larger CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) project, which is an international treaty administered by the United Nations.
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