CITES Paperwork SNAFU Creating
Huge Trophy Shipment Boondoggle


Dear E-Mail Extra Subscriber

The Hunting Report has just learned that scores of trophy shipments entering the US are being stopped by the US Fish & Wildlife Service due to improperly completed CITES documentation. The word we have at this point is shipments from Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia are involved, but shipments from other countries may also be involved. The problem is that shippers and customs officials in these countries are not filling out the necessary CITES paperwork according to new requirements of US Fish & Wildlife. The service is ruling that the documents are invalid and thus the shipments are illegal. Hunters faced with this problem are being given the choice of returning their shipment to the country of origin or having it seized by US Fish & Wildlife, with the understanding that the seizure can be appealed.

We learned of the emerging crisis this morning from an affected subscriber who had already told USFWS to seize his trophies. That is NOT the right way to handle this emergency, according to John J. Jackson, III, of Conservation Force. He says it will cost more in attorney's fees to appeal the seizure than it will to return the trophies to their country of origin and then re-ship them with the proper paperwork. Also, he warns that the appeals process can take up to two years, and there is no guarantee of success.
This emerging crisis for US hunters is the result of new and highly stringent paperwork requirements the service implemented this past September. Jackson wrote about these new requirements in his Conservation Force Bulletin at the time, and we followed up with warnings of our own. Frankly, it was not entirely clear up until now just how nit-picky and punitive USFWS was going to be. Clearly, their implementation of this is going to be a nightmare for hunters, with the smallest clerical errors being treated as fatal paperwork flaws. For example, we understand at least two shipments have been stopped simply because authorities in the range nations forgot to indicate in duplicate on the form how many CITES species were covered by the import permit.

It is unclear at this point how the hunting community can completely solve this problem, as clerical errors are inevitable in paperwork of this sort, especially when it is being filled out by often poorly trained, low-salaried individuals. Clearly, the professional hunters and taxidermists in the range nations are going to have to step up to the plate and help eliminate errors and omissions in CITES paperwork. To that end, we have already posted to our web site a copy of the CITES document that is causing all the trouble, along with instructions on how it must be filled out. We have also posted a sample there of a properly filled out form. See hyperlink below. Longer term, solving this problem is probably going to require some kind of political intervention, as the total elimination of clerical errors and omissions is impossible.

Make no mistake - this is not just an Africa problem. This is a global problem that will affect CITES imports from all over the world, including Tajikistan and Mongolia, to cite just two countries outside Africa. If you currently have a CITES species awaiting shipment anywhere in the world, you are clearly at risk of either having it seized or being forced to re-ship to a far-flung corner of the world. The action you can take at this moment is to click on the hyperlink below and study the CITES document that comes up, along with the set of instructions on how it must be filled out. Next, send this document to the agent and/or outfitter who helped you take a CITES species. Urge them to get involved in the export process right away and help make sure your CITES paperwork is properly filled out. - Barbara Crown.

(Postscript: We are indebted to Carol Rutkowski of Coppersmith Inc. Global Logistics for helping us get the form below uploaded to our web site in a timely manner. She also helped in the reporting that went into this bulletin.)


http://www.huntingreport.com/temp_cities_permit_form.cfm

quote:

The action you can take at this moment is to click on the hyperlink below and study the CITES document that comes up

Kathi, do you have the link/url?

Any idea how big this problem is? Meaning is it going to cause problems for most of us with getting our trophies back to the US that include CITES animals? Regardless it is not good news.

Maybe this is too much to ask of our bureaucratic system but one must wonder as to the "why"?? ---why did USFW determine the need for this debacle in the first place????
However, realizing that we will never know the answer to that question --- let alone understand any BS answer that we would be given -- the realistic question is we need a point of contact within USFW and or regulatory system to focus on --- doubt that it will solve much of anything but at least I would feel better having a point to vent on as opposed to looking at a blank wall with little recourse at this point.
I guess one question would be who/what department governs these idiots??

Apparently it's not an African specific problem...it's just CITES in general.

Not good...not good at all.

Basically I see this as more governmental BS. The USFW decided they needed to change the paperwork but then does not explain it to anyone and leaves it up to the people to figure it out on their own. Soon USFW will realize there is a problem, but instead of fixing it they will set up a commitee to study it for awhile. Then the commitee will come out and say its not their problem and nothing will get done. In the meantime more tax payors money gets wasted.

This has been going on since the first of the year. There are ways to avoid sending your trophies back or having them seized. Another reason to pick your agents and use a Customs broker. This fiasco will make the DIY hunter penny wise and dollar foolish in a big hurry. Good post Kathi, and a very real concern.
David

I was just notified today by the customs broker that I am using in Seattle that my trophy shipment from Namibia has this very problem. Included in the shipment is a Mtn. Zebra and block 14 of the CITES form is blank.

USFW will remove the zebra and allow the rest of the shipment to go to the tannery. Then I can at my expense ship the zebra back to Namibia to have the form filled out correctly or allow the zebra to be seized and abandon it. They are waiting for my decision regarding the Zebra before allowing the rest of the trophies to move along.

I am perplexed at this point. This was my first trip to Africa and other than this the entire experience was great. The PH was recommended by friends who went with him before, he had a relationship with a taxidermist to handle dipping, etc. The taxidermist had a relationship with a shipping agent in Windhoek. Anyway someone dropped the ball and now I have to decide what I am going to do. Finding people capable of doing any job correctly seems to be getting harder all of the time.

If anyone has a quick fix idea I would love to hear it. Other than that if you are bringing back a CITES animal heed the advice in Kathi's email and make sure all those in your safari loop understand how to completely fill out the forms.

Elkhunter:
Would you mind giving us the names of the PH, Taxidermist and shipping agent? Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks.

on my shipment from zambia the taxi. had to fill out forms for each thing separately stuff floated right through, but he did have to do a bunch of xtra paperwork

Wouldn't seem reasonable that the honchos at SCI would be looking into this snafu and be assisting getting this resolved??

It seems like USFWS could seize the trophy until proper paperwork is in their hands. Their 2 options stink.

Having said that, there should be some kind of recourse from the company that filled out the paperwork incorrectly. It shouldn't all be on the client.

Although not mentioned, if your state has a reasonable senator or representative, email them, actually all of them (the more the merrier). Receiving congressional inquiries may not solve the problem, but it will get the bigwigs involved in having only a short time to answer. Regardless of what most people think, federal agencies hate to have to answer these inquiries...and a bunch at one time causes untold headaches for them.
We may want to even space them out so just as soon as they've answered one, another one hits the USFWS!

Would it be to much to ask for the CITES paperwork prior to shipment either faxed or via pdf in an email, etc once your trophies are ready? This would allow you to at least look over the paperwork yourself, and maybe not get stuck in a situation like elkhunter62.

don't know if its true or not but i was told yesterday that shipments from zim are at a total standstill

My customs broker told me yesterday that my CITES box 14 was incomplete for my mountain zebra but that USFW had cleared it anyway. I don't know why I got lucky when some others have had trouble.

Scott

I have been waiting 3 months for my Bontebok CITES permit from USFWS. Their voicemail tells how backlogged they are and how slow they are in processing their paperwork.

So why aren't they streamlining their paperwork to get the job done quicker, instead of nitpicking the paperwork from other countries.

Do they forget that the last word in their name is "Service"?

simple - bureaucrats never make a mistake, just ask them, its always easier to blame somebody else. the word service is not in their vocabulary -only we need more money, we need more people

Sad but true. That really sums up bureaucracy doesn't it?

Has SCI shown any formal interest in putting some energy into this messy problem? And this is a serious problem that is bound to get a lot worse with a lot of hunters taking a pounding or losing their trophies for basically bullshit reasons. What was OK a few weeks ago is now a serious offence. There are other less harsh ways of getting the paperwork straightened out. But then you need a willingness on the officials side, or someone needs to order them to work out some reasonable plan. These folks making these rulings need to realise that the world is a large place with many countries, even more cultures and therefore many more languages - many do not even speak English and that often leads to clerical mistakes or forms. Most of these are not serious and could be fixed with an e-mail or two.

First for Hunters, no?

I believe "box 14" lists the quantities of each CITES species contained in the shipment eg if there is one hippo, you enter "1" in the correct qty box/ I also believe this section is for the Customs official at port of exit to complete as verification that the CITES trophy has left the country?

Well, you will have a problem UNLESS every custom official will have been informed of this NEW procedure. Now to properly inform EVERY custom official at Cargo section in Tanzania, for example, is practicably impossible, would take several weeks and would be forgotten by the end of the season forcing one to repeat the exercise every 6 months! Talk about useless burocracy and paperwork

Bump because I want to see how this works out