TURBO SNAILS JUST BANNED

[Anonymous]

We started having problems with delayed inspections pertaining to snails over a year or longer in the past. Since then, inspections have not been any worse for the wear and we have not had any problems recently.

I spoke with our customs broker who just rang up the inspection officer from US Fish and WL and there is NO problem with Marine snails. Only Fresh Water snails will be a "no-no".

This is a good "heads-up" on the hotline!

Regards,

Eric

So the US AG person whom contacted Steve at ASAP has got his facts wrong? I know it wouldn;t be a first that some official overstepped thier boundries by not reading or understanding what they're enforcing.

This is a fairly new deal, April 5th wasn;t that long ago. I could see a US F&W S agent getting thier facts wrong as well.

Guess until some one contacts the head office at the contact info I listed, we won't know for sure.

 

[clarionreef]

Actually,
You might just get a different interpretation in different places in the country.
The hubbub may serve to force a uniform definition of the situation and allow the ones who warned us to back down gracefully.
As of today, we are afraid to bring them in...and we will run out soon.
If the port of SFO gets over inspected, then we'll have to get turbos in thru LA.
LA gets lots of stuff in that we don't!
Steve

 

[Tropic]

Actually,
You might just get a different interpretation in different places in the country.
The hubbub may serve to force a uniform definition of the situation and allow the ones who warned us to back down gracefully.
As of today, we are afraid to bring them in...and we will run out soon.
If the port of SFO gets over inspected, then we'll have to get turbos in thru LA.
LA gets lots of stuff in that we don't!
Steve

Absolutely true. Different ports have different interpretations of the law. It just depends on the supervisor and what kind of mood you catch them in. Fish and Wildlife do not uphold the law in a unified way. When you ask to have them define the law, they always start out with " I am no coral expert", i am thinking in my head"obviously", then they proceed to give you the my way or the highway speech! I could go on for days about the abuse importers have to tolerate and how i find myself constantly defending my profession and my hobby! Talk about splitting hairs.

Gresham....Imported.The snails i was referring to were trochus histrio from Indonesia. The agric.inspector called me to ask about my shipment, he was particularly interested in the snails, algaes, etc. i told him it was all marine, he looked at my docs and said "oh, i didnt see that, i didnt know coral was marine, so i didnt know about the snails or algae". It never ceases to amaze me.

Here is the real question: why do importers get treated like purse snatchers by fish and wildlife agents? Why are they allowed to split hairs, and create situations that are unrealistic? Why are they using identification guides for coral that are so far from being accurate or up to date? why do they send out memos stating amendments to inspection protocols that include listed corals to be identified down to species when it was genus prior? Why on this ammendment do they have seriatopora needing to be id'd down to species and they only have two species listed when there is actually like 7 or 8? Why do they constantly make mistakes, set forth impossible,personal interpretations, and then expect third world exporting nations to somehow manage to do the job on identification correct!?(and realize what port variations they are dealing with)

 

[Tropic]

Sorry for jacking the thread.....dealing with customs, agiculture, and F&W on a routine basis causes me to lose my cool. Preconceived notions & power trips; boy this irritates me.

 

[sdcfish]

Glenn....great to hear from you man! I hope you are doing well.

I didn't really get into the fresh water stuff with the agent, but it sounded like "good luck".....

If you want, I can double check tomorrow.

Best regards

Eric

 

[Anonymous]

Steve's and Tropics posts cleared it up for me. Makes sense.