This post covers my experiences bringing back my moose antlers from Sweden to the USA and clearing them through customs – it may be of interest to some other American hunting in Europe. Or not! The first part is about the customs procedures and the second part is about logistics.

From August of 2014 through July of 2015, I lived in Gothenburg, Sweden. In September of 2014 I had a successful hunt for moose in Jämtland, about a three hour drive north of Östersund. I described it in a lengthy post here. http://forums.accuratereloadin...5421043/m/8091015402

Part 1 – Procedures
I had the head prepared locally as a European style mount and had it shipped down to me in Gothenburg in December of 2014. I then emailed both the USDA and the US Fish & Wildlife Service to try and find out what it would take for me to bring it back to the USA.
The USDA told me:

quote:

>Please refer to the attached pages from the Animal Product Manual (APM) regarding antlers. You can import up to 2 sets of antlers without any documentation as long as they are clean, dry and free from blood or other foreign matter.

The two pages from the APM are pages 3-20-1 and 3-20-2, here:
Animal Products Manual

The USFWS told me:

quote:

…The Eurasian elk (Alces alces) is not listed under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) or the United States Endangered Species Act, thus a permit from this office is not necessary in order to conduct interstate commerce or import or export the animals you described.
…
Contact USDA APHIS to check on their requirements: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wps/portal/aphis/home/
…
All wildlife (including parts and products) imported or exported from the U.S. for any purpose must be declared to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; you will need to contact the Wildlife Inspector at the appropriate designated port (see http://www.fws.gov/le/ports-contact-information.html) to make an appointment for clearance of your shipment. At the appointment you will need to present the appropriate documentation and a completed Declaration Form 3-177 (http://www.fws.gov/le/declaration-form-3-177.html). The Inspector will be able to answer all your questions about the logistics for clearing the shipment. We recommend contacting an Inspector to discuss the step by step process.

So, my next step was to ring an inspector in Atlanta, where I planned to clear customs. He was very helpful and sent me a “48-hour notification form”, which I filled out, and sent it back with a copy of the 3-177 form and my hunting license. He told me over the phone that USFWS was unlikely to actually come over to Customs and that they would probably let Customs handle it. In the event, I handed Customs all the paperwork, including the 48-hour notification form that I had sent weeks before, and after 20 minutes or so they sent me on my way.

Part 2 – Logistics

Actually getting the antlers packaged up and safely back to Oklahoma properly turned out to be more challenging than I expected. I got the antlers via bussgoods (a freight service that uses special buses that carry people and which have an extra cargo section) in December of 2014. Joachim (my hunting guide) had carefully wrapped and padded the antlers, then put them in a large cardboard box. The antlers did fine, but the box didn't survive the trip very well. So, after resolving the import procedures, I started getting serious about figuring out how to get the antlers home. I decided the best bet was for me to bring them back with me as checked luggage. Then the challenge became building a crate strong enough to protect the antlers and light enough (if possible) to meet the standard weight limit of 23 kg / 50 pounds. A friend of mine had located a source of large cardboard boxes that, in retrospect, I wished I ordered. But, somehow I got the idea that building my own crate would be better. So, by using a couple pallets for wood, buying some additional lumber and lots of glue and screws, I was able to start on the project. I also scrounged a large piece of cardboard, used to cover a whiteboard for shipping. And that was OK, as far as it went, but I also ended up buying more moving boxes, cutting them into a lot of strips to make honeycomb type structures. And having my daughter bring me some pool noodles from the USA. And buying straps and other hardware to hold everything together. And buying a lot of bubble wrap. After many, many hours of my own time assembling the world's best moose antlers shipping crate, I found that I could not make the weight limit, so I had to settle for it being both oversized and overweight when I checked in for my Lufthansa flight to Atlanta via Frankfurt. But it did make to Atlanta with almost no damage to the crate.

A few photos...

The start of the shipping crate:



Fitting the pool-noodles, before adding a lot of bubble wrap:



The finished crate, about to leave for the Gothenburg airport:



At the Gothenburg airport, I incurred the overweight, oversize extra fees, which were about $350. (The crate with antlers and padding was a kg or so over the limit, which I knew, so I put some other things in, keeping it under the maximum limit of 32 kg. The crate was then my only piece of checked luggage.)

By the way, the reception at the airport was perhaps different than you might expect. The woman at the airline ticket office was interested enough to want to see a photo of the moose. When I handed the crate over to baggage handling, I watched the face of the attendant as it passed through the X-ray machine - her face lit up when she saw what it was.

Having arrived at Atlanta, the next challenge was getting it to the rental car. It took up most of the space in the rental car shuttle van:



I rented a pick-up truck, then drove the crate straight to a nearby UPS store and shipped it back to Oklahoma:



The crate had a few holes punched in the side by the time it reached my house in Oklahoma. But, again, the antlers survived the trip with no damage. I went back to Sweden for another month, but a few weeks after I got home in August, I had it up on the wall:



If you've read all the way to the end, you may be able to say how this could have been done better, easier, faster, and less expensively. I'm all ears! I hope to have this problem again some day!

You could have bought pipeisolation(20kr) so you dont have to import the poolnoodles.

worst case scenario i guess u could have removed the antlers from the skull as well....