This story is part of the happenings on a bear hunt in Russia. Our group of 8 hunters hunted Kamchatca and were sucessful in everyone taking a bear, some took two. The weather prevented the helicopter from picking us up on the appointed day so our tickets had to be reissued. Kathy Klimes took care of it without a hitch. Seven of us would be landing New York's
JFK and one would be going through Atlanta. The Atlanta flight left about one hour before the flight to JFK. When we arrived in NY Mr. John Meehan from Fauna & Flora was called and showed up promptly at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Each of us had our bear hide or hides all in one place so he said I will call Fish & Wildlife to come here. He called and they indicated they would be along. After about a 45 minute wait he called back and they had decided not to come as it would put them into overtime, but they did not bother to notify us. Then papers were filled out for each hide and I think they went into Fauna & Flora's cooler. We all had the very offical looking cites paper work which was given to Mr. Meehan. My bill for
Fauna & Flora's services was $595.32 which included shipping to the taxidermist and it took May 17th to June 17th for this to occur. My friend who went thru Atlanta and used Coppersmith had a bill of $174.00 which included getting the hide to him which took 4 days. It does not appear that storage had anything to do with the cost and I realize that no one can do anything about how long Fish & Wild Life holds the trophies. But there sure is a lot of difference in the cost and this is about as close to comparing apples to apples as you are going to get. Has anyone else had any situations like this? I have the invoices if some one knows how to post them. No names will be shown though.

Several people on this forum over the years have expressed less than satisfactory experiences with Fauna and Flora. I've never used them.

The taxidermist I use in Denver has all the paperwork and stuff to clear the trophies through his shop. He has Fish & Wildlife and Customs come to the studio and everything is in house. Makes it really easy and it is part of the service. He doesn't charge anything extra except for whatever charge Fish & Wildife requires and that's usually less than $100.

I use Coppersmith exclusively now.

You did not mention how your hide was stored???If the hide is not fleshed good and either preserved or frozen expect hair slippage.

Now that is interesting. So correct me if I am wrong , for the same service you were charged almost $425 more by Flora & Funa.
I have 11 animals over in Africa , that makes me think Twice , I was going to use Flora & Funa.
I would like to here more experices on this between the 2 Broker or agents.

I used F&F and was a little peeved- they called me at 5:05 am PST 8:05 their time- when I mentioned this to the caller, he adopted a New York attitude which only peeved me more. And they were very expensive & slow. No mas....