A soothing shot of maracujá juice. That’s what organizers said they wanted to serve to riled-up participants at a workshop here on wildlife contraband. Fraying nerves were raw exchanges on the subject of animal mistreatment in wildlife nurseries—and the alleged role nurseries play in illegal traffic in rare and endangered species. Wildlife nurseries often are touted as a solution to poaching because they can help meet insistent world demand for exotic pets. But they took intense heat from law enforcement officers, regulators and activists at the “2nd National Workshop on Wildlife: Standards and Control” held here recently. Many nurseries are suspected of receiving poached animals and of falsifying documents that identify animals as having been raised in captivity and thus legally eligible for... [Log in to read more]