Any problems or things to be aware of if trying to import a guinea fowl into the states from Zimbabwe?

?? You have them in the USA already...

I don't know about Zim to the US but I had two sent in with my stuff from Zambia in late 2010 without an issue. Laura du Plooy told me at SCI that they may be a problem now. Not sure why.

I spoke with my bird taxidermists about importing some ducks a few years ago. He basically said if the hides are salted, he wouldn't do the work. If you can get them back frozen and whole, he didn't have any problems. He said the salting ruins the skin on birds.

I looked into bringing the ducks back in my carry-on. It didn't seem like much of a problem, just some paperwork to deal with. Plus, you needed to know exactly what you were planning on bringing back.

Years ago, C.J. McElroy sent me to South Africa to collect specimens of birds and small mammals when he was building the SCI museum, and a friend who came along and I shot and shipped males and females of about six dozen types of birds to Jonas Brothers in Seattle.

The South African nature departments in two provinces assisted greatly by gaining access for us to certain areas, as well as issuing collecting and export permits and sending representatives along on some of our collecting outings.

One of their biologists used the organs of what we shot for a study he was doing on the effects of pesticides to control locusts on birds and other wildlife.

We shot everything from oxpeckers to hornbills, egrets, kingfishers and giant herons, three different types of guinea fowl to several types of waterfowl, along with springhare, African wildcat, porcupine, meerkat, jackal, etc.

The only bird I wanted and could not get a permit for was a secretary bird. Don't know why. I could have shot several during the ten days we collected on the DeBeers Rooipoort Estate near Kimberley.

All of the skins reached Seattle in mountable condition, but only because they were processed twice daily as we shot them by taxidermists in Kimberly and Durban. It was a long time ago and I'm not sure now, but I think the RSA taxidermists only skinned, degreased and dried the birds.

Bill Quimby

quote:

Originally posted by Frostbit:
I don't know about Zim to the US but I had two sent in with my stuff from Zambia in late 2010 without an issue. Laura du Plooy told me at SCI that they may be a problem now. Not sure why.

And...Joyce shot those!!!!

Beautiful mount!

We also had a problem with Guineas. If you mount them this side and send them over its not a problem.The paperwork is not a problem either.

But I had a collecter that wanted his own taxidermist to do the work and its quiet a performance to dip and pack a bird corectly so that it gets that side in a mountable condition.

In the end we took photos and he shot a few tame guineas in the states and had them mounted instead.Was a hell of a lot cheaper than dipping and packing and shipping the things.

Thanks all.

bill, that sounds like it must have been a great trip. What an assignement.

Dave, your idea probably makes the most sense.

quote:

bill, that sounds like it must have been a great trip. What an assignement.

It was. It was 26 years ago, and only my third trip down there. I remember the year well because I celebrated my 50th birthday in Cape Town at a great restaurant called "On The Rocks."

Without email and fax, it took nearly six months to get the nature departments to approve the permits. The really tough ones arrived only a couple of weeks before I left Tucson. One of those was a permit to take, possess and export a protected subspecies of guinea fowl found only in Natal, I think it was.

Bill Quimby

i brought back a bird or 2 mounted and that was no trouble, but i tried a spur wing goose - not mounted - and it spoiled before the taxidermist could do it

One of the big problems is getting a skinner that knows how to skin them properly. I have brought back several over the years but I skinned them myself. The other issue is to take with you or obtain borax in Africa to treat the skins instead of salt. That was several years ago and I would not want to explain to airport security that the white powdered substance is borax instead of what he thinks it is.
The way I would do it now:
Make sure your outfitter can get you export permits for the birds.
Make sure he has a skinner that knows the proper way to prepare the skins.
Have borax available for preservation.
Make arrangements to have all the papers ready from your outfitter so you can bring the birds back with you on return.
Have the US docs with you to bring them through USFW and customs upon return flight.(only available at certain airports)
Hope this helps.

Hi seven
My Taxidermist friend suggested once that we put normal washing powder from a machine on the raw bits, to preserve it. I was kinda confused and he said that it had Borax in it and would help till we could get the skin to a tannery.

Im sure you can get Borax from a SA taxidermist though.

A brand sold here in the US is called 20 Mule Team Borax and it is a washing detergent, same thing I'm talking about. Any kind of borax will work and MUCH better than salt.

I took the Great Northwestern Taxidermy School correspondence course as a boy, and remember using borax as the book instructed to preserve the skins of birds I mounted.

A great horned owl I mounted (they were not protected then) in about 1949 still had all of its feathers when I threw it away a couple of years ago.

Bill Quimby

I had planed to bring back two Eygptian goose skins from my May 2011 hunt for study, not mounting. I instructed the taxidermist in SA to be sure the skins were fully dry before sending them so as to avoid problems with USFWS. Two months before shipping all of my trophies the taxidermist sent an email indicating the FWS would not allow birds skins, mounted or otherwise, into the U.S. The receiving agent here confirmed the issue. So, I have photos of a great hunt, no skins. My hunting buddy attempted the same with rock pigeons, was informed of the same. The problem was his paperwork showed the skins to be in the crate with his plains game skins/skulls (they were NOT in there) and that started a whole new set of problems that cost a fair bit of money to straighten out.

I suspect it might be a vetinary associated ruling based on the fact that wild fowl and other birds can carry diseases like Newcastle disease that may cause massive catastophic epidemics in your local domestic poultry industry.

The helmeted guineafowl of Africa has been known to be carrier of Newcastle disease

The Interior Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned with the CITES treaty and our Endangered Species Act. The Department of Agriculture 's concern would be in keeping diseases and parasites from the entering the country. Both agencies could be involved when importing bird skins.

Bill Quimby

I think its AVIAN FLU our ostrich Industry has been very hard hit by the closure of all exports in Ostriches, due to the discovery of the Avian flu on some Ostrich farms. They discovered traces of the virus in wild birds to.

You can buy them live off craigslist here in California for about $20 each

They taste good too but the meat not the feathers ! And unlike chickens they will fly over your barn. Italians have been eating them fo a very long time.

I just ( yesterday in fact ) picked up the dried skins of one Spurwing goose and one Egyptian goose from my crates from South Africa. I had no problem importing them.

Now I gotta get them to my taxidermist to see if he can make 'em work.


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