EP 388. Importing Trophy Birds Across US Borders

The Importance of Following Proper Wildlife Import Protocols

“It is just paperwork and protocol, but it can be a daunting protocol. The paperwork’s fairly simple, but the process is exacting because it is a big deal.” – Ramsey Russell

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Duck Season Somewhere. For those of you all listening that want to travel outside the United States, go to Mexico or who knows where, and bring those beautiful birds back to the United States. I get asked all the time, is it a big deal, no, it’s paperwork and protocol. And it’s exacting because it is a big deal. To help me explain the ins and outs and why it’s a big deal and why it is important, joining me today is U.S. Fish Wildlife Service Senior Wildlife Inspector, Mr. Jeff Moore from Phoenix, Arizona. Jeff, how are you?

Jeff Moore: Thank you. I’m doing great today. Thank you for having me on. I was really hoping to work together with you, get some education out there for the hunters, let them know what the requirements are, what they need because it’ll make their trip easier across the border. It’ll make my job easier. The last thing I want to do is have to tell someone their stuff has to be seized because they don’t have the proper paperwork or anything. I’d rather just admire someone’s birds, congratulate them for a job well done and wish them well as they take those birds home.

Ramsey Russell: I do this stuff often. I’ve done it a lot. I’ve done it for 20 years, in and out across borders and it’s daunting. It is just paperwork and protocol, but it can be a daunting protocol. The paperwork’s fairly simple. And Jeff, how I came to know you in a professional sense was just through working with you and working through you, involving some client issues and stuff like that. It’s like I hit you up one time and said, Jeff, I really wish I could get you on board to help me explain to the listeners and to our audience why this is such a big deal and what the importance is and just kind of help us do it right. Because to my knowledge, every single one of my clients just wants to go outside of the U.S. borders and have a great time hunting and bring some beautiful birds back for taxidermy. I mean, big deal, Jeff, I mean, a lot of these birds are coming to Mexico out of America anyway. Why is it a big deal bringing them back, but it is. And I know there’s a lot of stuff beyond the shoveler and the cinnamon teal and the blue-winged teal. There’s all kinds of stuff that wildlife inspectors like yourself have to deal with. So thank you very much for joining us. I want to start like this, though. I want to know a little bit more about Jeff Moore, the person. Where are you from?

Jeff Moore: So I’m from, I grew up, went to high school in Mesa, Arizona. I’ve lived in Arizona since my parents moved here in the eighties. Right after high school, you know, I wasn’t on track for college. I ended up joining the Marines, went off, was in the infantry for the Marines, did some time in Spain, a little time in Okinawa and I came back, and my parents or my grandparents always would take me out fishing, deep sea fishing, lake streams, and just that. And then idly as it is, the Marine Corps, I kind of grew to enjoy camping out, the outdoors. It grew on me a little bit more. Then I came back, got a job working. And then I started to take part in outdoors a little bit more and then just had the urge to start hunting. Got with some friends, picked up a bow, learned how to shoot a bow, started going out hunting deer, going for elk. Sadly, I don’t get drawn as much as I want. I have no better opportunity, chance of getting drawn than everybody else. I’ve had friends like, Oh, you get drawn all the time. And I think I maybe get worse luck now, but I’ve done that. Other friends introduced me to hunting quail doves. Obviously, we don’t have being in the desert, it’s a little bit harder hunting waterfowl. I’ve never hunted waterfowl. And it wasn’t until I got in this job that I really started learning just how diverse all the duck species are. I knew growing up and even going through college, you know, there were mallards, but then there’s blue-winged teal, green-winged teal, Mexican mallards, shovelers, greater scaups, lesser scaups. I mean, it’s just, I’m still studying on the birds and learning.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a lot. That could be a lifetime pursuit in and of itself, Jeff. Yeah, there’s a lot of ducks.

Jeff Moore: Arizona State did a great job teaching me. I went there for my wildlife management degree, graduated in 2006. You had some of my fellow students, Jonathan Odell, on your show to talk with you. I’ve had some other co-workers, they went to work for Arizona Game and Fish. I took a little bit different route coming to U.S. Fish and Wildlife. After I got my degree, I ended up working with U.S. Customs as an agricultural specialist down in Nogales, starting in 2007. And then that’s where I found out about the wildlife inspector program, which I didn’t know about until I met the old inspector, Bill Myers, here. And I started learning about that job, and I naturally fell into clearing a lot of the hunting trophies. And then in 2015, there was an opening for the wildlife inspector in Nogales, and I put in, and thankfully I got hired, got in the job and just haven’t looked back. Loved it. It’s great work. Get to meet interesting people. Every day is different, I don’t know what I’m coming into, I could come in to just expect to sit in the office, doing some paperwork training and next thing I know, I’m being called about someone with an iguana or lizard or pet bird down at the border or a homeowner calling up saying they got a bear in their backyard, which trying to direct them to Arizona Game and Fish. We work a lot with the state guys on different stuff.

Ramsey Russell: You have to wear a lot of hats for that job. I didn’t realize, I mean, because now you’re not just, I know Phoenix Arizona port of entry as coming through Phoenix airport. But you’re also working outside the airport then.

Jeff Moore: Yeah, so I cover myself, and we just got another wildlife inspector here. She’s just hit the floor running and helping out. We cover all the ports in Arizona.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. How many airports are there?

Jeff Moore: Two international airports and then there’s San Luis, Nogales. I think there’s six land borders.

Ramsey Russell: Golly.

Jeff Moore: So we cover all that. And then we also assist wildlife inspector offices in different locations. So we do wear different hats. We’ll assist Arizona Game and Fish. If they call and ask for help, we’ll work with them because sometimes we’ll have joint investigations. We’ve had Game and Fish find someone that smuggled a baby deer up from Mexico because the deer needed help. Somehow it broke its leg. They never declared it to customs, and they just got it to a wildlife rehabber. And then we worked with Arizona Game and Fish to find the best outcome for that deer while also preserving our native wildlife.

Ramsey Russell: Right.

Protecting Native Wildlife Through Strict Import Regulations

“When you bring in animals from outside the country, you’re looking at disease risks that can come in. Chronic wasting disease is a big one, and USDA is really worried about avian influenza right now.” – Jeff Moore

Jeff Moore: Because sometimes you’ll bring in animals from outside the country, you’re looking at disease risks that can come in. Chronic wasting disease is a big one we’re worried about. USDA is really worried about avian influenza right now.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Jeff Moore: So I’ve done that with Fish and Wildlife. We’ve done foreign details where we go and work with foreign countries, training them and that’s something for the State Department. Educate them, work with them, because like you said, the birds of Mexico, they do come from the U.S. or they come from Canada. Again, they move their way south as winter comes and then summer comes they start moving back. You can see this with the doves. I think Arizona has two populations of doves. We’ve got the summer and the winter. As soon as summer starts coming around fall, they’ll move down to Mexico. Then the ones up north will move into Arizona. So we gotta protect those birds and that’s where that Migratory Bird Treaty Act came in. The old wildlife biologists realized the birds are transnational. They don’t stop at the border. Those populations go over, so what’s affecting a population in one country can spill over into another country and affect our birds there.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely. What are some of the most interesting things you’ve seen at the borders? I used to date a girl a long, long time ago, I’m talking 40, 45 years ago, and their family was into parrots, big old parrots that live 40 years or more. I remember her telling me the story in high school about driving a boat home down to Mexico and getting them and coming home with them. I mean, does that wild parrot trade still a big thing, or have you ever stumbled across a rolled-up jaguar hide or something?

Jeff Moore: The parrot trade is still ongoing. I don’t have the facts. I’ve heard the old stories about people bringing suitcases full of parrots through the Miami and Los Angeles airports in the 1990’s. That’s back when they’re talking about the late 1980’s, 1990’s, you know, the cocaine cowboys. And there’s a few books on the wildlife trade during that time frame. I think we got it under control but we do have occasionally people that would bring birds across the border. I had one case, a lady came up to the border walking across, had a birdcage just full of droppings all over the birdcage and the customs officer looks at her and asks, do you have any birds, ma’am? She’s like, no. And the officer’s like, you sure? You’ve got a birdcage covered in bird droppings. She’s like, I don’t have any birds and he starts noticing something moving in her shirt. He asked her again, and right about the time he asked her the third time, this little dove sticks its head up out of her shirt.

Ramsey Russell: A dove?

Jeff Moore: Yeah. And she had four Eurasian collared doves stuffed in her shirt.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, Arizona’s got plenty of those. She didn’t have to go south of the border for those.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. She just wanted them. So we do get people that go down there. They’ll go down nearby, you know, grandma, grandpa gives the kid a little pet bird, parrot. Sometimes people are unaware that they require permits or basically for lack of a better definition, they need a pet passport, permits to come across. USDA had to tighten up the requirements for importing pet birds to protect our native birds, our native chicken farms and everything. But we’ll get that. I’ve had hunters, you know, sit there, I’m talking to the hunter, and he’ll ask me, hypothetically, what would happen if I wanted to bring in a mountain lion hide? And I’ll explain the process.

Ramsey Russell: And bring it to what?

Ramsey Russell: A mountain lion hide.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah, right. Hypothetical.

Jeff Moore: They’re down there deer hunting, and he just wanted to know, could he bring in a mountain lion if he saw one and shot it? I explained the process and, I’ve asked, do you have a mountain lion? Do you have a hide? And he’s like, no. And we unroll his deer hide. Well, lo and behold, there’s a mountain lion.

Ramsey Russell: They’ll never look there. Yeah.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. Sometimes, we’ll get hunters who just pick up stuff. Sometimes they’re just not aware or absentmindedly pick something up. I think we had a duck hunter who picked up an old desert tortoise shell that’s regulated under Mexican and US law, and he just didn’t know, but he declared it. When these guys declare and say, hey, I got this. Is it okay? We’ll give them a little warning. It’s when people try to hide stuff then they get a little bit more trouble.

Ramsey Russell: They go to intent to do something wrong.

Jeff Moore: Oh, yeah, it’s intent and did you just make a mistake? Yeah, we’ve had, I’ve seen guys smuggle that. I’ve seen guys try to smuggle almost half a whale.

Ramsey Russell: Golly.

Jeff Moore: Sometimes people go down the beach, they go, they just start collecting and they don’t think it all.

Ramsey Russell: You’ve got, like, it’s almost like, in my mind, I could break it up. I’ve got hunters and I’ve got other people, and I’ve got guys that might shoot a mountain lion and try to get him in. And I’ve got guys that might just not know, as you explained. But working the border this day and age, I mean, here’s what I’m trying to get at, you’ve got good and you’ve got bad, you’ve got bad intent and good intent, but there’s got to be some crossover. I’m just thinking out loud here, between narcotics and wildlife smuggling and poaching versus just hunters going down and trying to do the right thing but not knowing.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. So we deal with people that just inadvertently bring something across the border they’re not supposed to have, maybe they were driving down, saw the tortoise crossing the road, and they just picked it up and thought they’ll take it home. Home happens to be Phoenix. There’s those, we’ll deal with them. Then there’s the individuals that they know what they’re doing is wrong and they just don’t think the law applies. We do have the criminal cartels that are in the wildlife trade.

Ramsey Russell: Really? That what I was wondered.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. The illegal wildlife trade is the third-largest illegal group. So you got drugs, and then you got the illegal weapon trade, and then number third is the illegal wildlife trade in timber.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. Now, okay. Narcotics and wildlife. What kind of wildlife are we talking about? Any kind of wildlife?

Jeff Moore: So. And it really depends on the country. Everybody knows that ivory being trafficked, the rhino horns being trafficked, but there’s pet birds being trafficked out of Mexico, we may see bighorn sheep being poached for that. Other stuff is we have, there’s a fish down in Mexico called totoaba, and the swim bladder is highly prized in Asia. The criminal organizations in Mexico will work to smuggle that through the U.S. to send to Asia. So it’s just not local cartels, there’s international groups, and with those groups, wherever there’s money to be made, they’ll make it. We have got, Out of Mexico, sea cucumbers.

Ramsey Russell: Sea cucumbers, wow.

Jeff Moore: The best way to describe them is they look like warty dog turds. They’re a little marine animal. Some people eat them, but there’s a demand for them in certain markets, and we’ll see just that demand and sometimes they need special permits, and people just don’t want to go through that permit process or they’ve just wiped them out so much that there’s no trade allowed in them, and we’ll see those in the trade. We’ll see rhinos come across, rhino products, but mainly from Mexico, it’s seafood, some fish bladders, there’s timber being smuggled out of Mexico, harvested illegally.

Ramsey Russell: Are there any wood products down in Mexico that we hunters should be aware about like I’m thinking there’s a real dense heavy wood. It always worries me if I’m in another country and see something made out of wood, because I don’t know what woods are protected, which ones aren’t.

Jeff Moore: For Mexico the ironwood, I know there’s been talk, but I haven’t heard anything recently about making it protected under CITES or Mexican law. From what I gathered, look at online research from Mexico, I think it’s just the illegal harvesting of timber from public lands. But it’s not like South America, where there’s actually protected species of trees being sought. Now what we do have with Mexico is people bring cactuses back. There are certain species of cactuses down there and all cactuses are covered under CITES, which is an international treaty that regulates how wildlife products or wood products, plant products can cross the border.

Ramsey Russell: All cacti are regulated by CITES?

Jeff Moore: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: The things you learn, wow. I had no idea.

Jeff Moore: It’s not 100% everything, there are certain conditions in there for greenhouse growing but, I would say almost nearly every member of the cacti’s family or cacti’s group. So your saguaros, your chollas, your bounties prickly pears, they’re all gonna be listed under CITES.

Ramsey Russell: Well, there’s certainly no shortage of them south of the border.

Jeff Moore: Oh, yeah. If you’re like me, you go out in the desert, you tend to come out looking like a whole teddy bear toy.

Ramsey Russell: Exactly.

Jeff Moore: There’s that intent there. Did you just happen to have a pod fall into your truck versus are you trying to bring it back to grow it?

Ramsey Russell: Right.

Jeff Moore: That’s where agriculture and customs get involved because they’re really concerned about propagatable plants coming in just because of the disease risk. Once I got in that job, I realized just the disease risk a single plant can possess.

Ramsey Russell: Let me ask you this, suddenly changing subjects, but how would you identify the importance of proper import to wildlife conservation and even to hunting?

Jeff Moore: A lot of hunters have asked me, why do you need this 3177 art declaration form? The declaration form is a way we can track what’s crossing the border, how much is crossing the border. An example is this deer season we tracked and recorded all the deer, all the sheep crossing the border then we’ll work with our counterparts in Mexico to let them know how much deer is crossing, how much bighorn sheep is crossing. So we can see if there are people presenting fraudulent tags, fraudulent documents, so we get idea of how big the trade is, and it also helps us with staffing. If we’re getting hammered there’s a lot of hunters coming in through Phoenix, like 90% of one flight from Mexico is hunters, we can justify having someone up there to clear those hunters so they’re dealing with us and then we all partners customs they can focus on their duties and not have to focus on ours. It’s a way we can show what’s coming in, what’s going out, who’s doing it. It’s more a tracking system, just like the state agencies, they’ll go out and ask hunters, do hunter surveys to announce who got a deer, how many you got. It’s our method of tracking and showing what the trade is or what’s coming in.

Ramsey Russell: Well, the value of hunting and I gotta say to you, Jeff, and I don’t think is wrong way, but when I overheard a conversation between you and my wife, one day I’m sitting here minding my own business at the computer, and you all were working through a sample 3177 that we provide to clients. Never, ever, ever in a long, long time have I ever put, assigned a value to that shoveler, to that Mexican duck, to whatever I’m coming in with anyway. I’ve always just put zero. And I overheard you say something to her, saying, no, you need to put a value because the way it could be interpreted as zero is if the wrong people, anti-hunters, were to look at that document that would not give them a proper value. It would not give hunting a proper value to conservation. When I heard you say that, I thought, hey, this might be a pretty good guy.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. I mean, the hunter, I’m not going to judge a hunter for what they put the value, but if they put a value there, if other groups start looking at this, it does help us gauge what the trade is worth to the community. I’m not going to sit there and get our little record book and say, well, this is this, but it does help us judge, how much that trade is worth to Mexico or how much the value is. If we know we can prove the value of a bighorn sheep coming out of Mexico is X amount, $50,000, and a Mexican ranch owner comes to us and says, hey, this individual poached this sheep on a ranch and we catch that gentleman with that poached sheep. Now we have documents showing what the value is. So when we go through the whole court process, be more special agent work, some get outside, we have documents showing how much that wildlife is valued. We can get that landowner recompensated potentially for the loss of that sheep. Someone goes and poaches waterfowl and he gets shut down. If we catch the gentleman or the person crossing, the poacher crossing the border with those poached waterfowl, we can now find a value to them. It’s easier for non-sportsmen, we put a value to something like that, now they can see it. We don’t like to put a value to wildlife, but when we go out and we say, you know, we did a wildlife seizure of rhino horns coming in, it was valued at $10 million on the black market, that gets people’s attention.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’ve always thought, since hearing your explanation to Anita about the proper considerations for completing the 3177, it reminded me of years ago now, the Humane Society sued or threatened to sue U.S. Fishing Wildlife Service to get access to all the wildlife declaration forms. And I’m thinking, what in the world would an anti-hunting organization want with that? Well, here’s Mr. Russell. He’s been to Mexico and he’s brought back 37 birds or 37 of these beautiful ducks over the years, by his words, not mine, there’s zero value. Therefore, there’s no conservation or any other kind of value to hunting. And I’m like, whoa, that, okay, now I get it, I need to put a number there that is valuable to me that will demonstrate that my hunting activities are justifiable from at least a monetary standpoint, a commodity standpoint. That’s just my take on it, Jeff.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. And just, so while some of the information on the declaration can be FOIA or freedom of information, your personal information will never. So no one, we’re never going to tell another group how much you’re bringing in. We’ll share information. Usually, it’s a little bit older information. This is how many deer cross, this is how many sheep crossed. And that we’re not going to say, we’re going to protect your information.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right, yeah, data but not personal information but nonetheless, the data is, what I was concerned about is that, boy, if they knew how many ducks were coming across to be sitting on people’s mantles and there was just an average value of zero, that wouldn’t look very good for hunting. That’s the point.

Jeff Moore: I know there are some researchers that actually use some of the declaration data just to show the commercial or they’re showing the trade, both good and bad. Because wildlife, as long as it’s regulated, there shouldn’t be a problem. Well-regulated hunting can be a benefit. It’s a tool for the land manager, it’s a tool for the management authorities to process, Arizona Game Fish does a great job of that and they’re funded completely by the activity is hunters hunting license and everything.

Ramsey Russell: Right. Talk about, for those of you all listening that are wondering what we’re talking about this 3177 is the basis of importing wildlife. It is the form, and we’ve got samples that we’ve received help on doing but it’s the US Fish Wildlife Service declarations form that is going to form the basis of your bringing back trophy birds. You’re going to fill it out completely. There are instructions online. We offer a sample sheet just for you to look at. And that is what you’re going to present at U.S. Customs or to Inspector Moore or whoever’s on duty to show, this is what I’m bringing but there’s also, that’s the start, that’s the start. And it varies from country to country. We’re going to use Mexico primarily as an example. I know it by heart, 50 CFR section 20.64, foreign export permits. It says this, no person shall import, possess, or transport any migratory game bird killed in a foreign country unless those birds are accompanied by any required export permits, tags, and other documentation required by applicable foreign laws or regulations. In the instance of Mexico, that entails an UMA permit, which is, I don’t know what UMA stands for, we all call it UMA permits. And I may be overstepping my boundaries here, Jeff, but that is basically proof that that Mexican outfitter was legally hunting in the eyes of his federal government. Okay. And number two, you’ve got to have tags. Mexico uses tags very similar to whether it’s deer or ducks, they’ve got tags. And the third thing is going to be your hunting license. And what that demonstrates is that these animals were indeed lawfully hunted by a licensed outfitter and everything on the Mexican side and on the American side is on the up and up. Is that a pretty fair explanation, Jeff?

Jeff Moore: Yeah, that’s pretty fair. My understanding from Googling UMA, it’s the management unit for the conservation wild life. So it’s a landowner that goes and asks the Mexican government for the permission to do that. And that form tells us, or tells me when I’m inspecting what animals they’re allowed to hunt. It’ll say the season, it’ll say the number of the species. The great thing Sonora’s done on their scintilla tags or their plastic hunting tags is they have a QR code on the back of those tags now. You can take a photo with your smartphone, and it will actually pull up that UMA permit and then that UMA permit on the back, it’s all in Spanish. So I cheat a little bit. I use the translate app on my phone to translate it, and it does a better job than I can translate it from Spanish to English. But it’ll tell you the regulations on the back. You can’t hunt at night. You can’t use explosives or this. And it’ll actually say for waterfowl, it’ll say your bag limits.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Jeff Moore: And those teams from year to year, and then species to species.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s a weird thing. But Jeff, because I don’t speak Spanish, I don’t read Spanish, I understand a little bit. And I get kidded all the time by my Latin American outfitters that even if I could speak it, I couldn’t pronounce it because of my accent but anyway, the first thing I do when I meet with an outfitter, the very first thing in Mexico, I do, and this stems from dealing with persons such as yourself. The very first thing I ask for, May I see a UMA? May I see your UMAs? Because what I can understand is I understand the scientific names they put for those birds, and I understand the word prohibited. I can read the numbers in parentheses. And so I know, oh, these tropical birds down here, like mass duck, are protected. This particular species. Oh, I’m trying to think of. I call them pato real. The wild Muscovies are protected. Okay.  I can see that plain as day. And here’s the bag limit on these other species. It translates into the number of birds per species that can be lawfully imported. When I come back home, when I got my ice chest or my duffel bag full of birds, that number is going to tell me how many of what species I can bring back. Is that right?

Jeff Moore: Yeah, that’s right. So the tag is going to say, usually it says, like, 25, I can’t remember because I know they’ll bounce between 25 to 30, depending on the year weather and everything. And usually it says 25 patos.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Jeff Moore: I probably mispronounce that. Probably get some angry listeners saying, I can’t pronounce Spanish, and they’re right, but it’ll say ducks, geese, and lately they’ve been breaking off, but they’ll put that all on there. And then you’ll have to look at a UMA to see how they break down that 25 because Mexican ducks have a slightly smaller list. I think pintails were only three or four this year. I think there were three this year. Last year, I got to reach out to Mexico, see what they’re gonna be for the future season.

Ramsey Russell: It’ll vary among the different provinces. That’s what they call it down there. So, yeah, it varies. And, but go ahead. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.

Jeff Moore: Oh, sorry. And you’re right. And from what I’ve seen, it varies by location in Sonora, and then Sinaloa is a little bit different. So it’s something hunters need to pay attention to. If you’re going to be doing all this work and effort, you need to do a little bit of homework, research like that 50 CFR, 20.64, you said, the foreign export permits. Mexico doesn’t require a foreign export permit provided the hunter has their hunting service contract or their hunting license and the Cynthia tag. So they have all their required documents. They don’t require that foreign export permit, but if they don’t have it, then they’re required to have that permit. And that varies by country from country to country.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, boy, does it.

Navigating the Complexities of International Hunting Regulations

“It can vary by country, and I tell hunters, if you’ve been going down there for 20 years, double-check it. Make sure nothing has changed because regulations can evolve over time.” – Jeff Moore

Jeff Moore: I know Mexican law, I know a little bit of Canadian law, but anywhere outside of that, people start asking, and I know I gotta double-check it, because it can change and that’s why I tell hunters, if you’ve been going down there for 20 years, double-check it, make sure nothing changes. Because even in the time I’ve been down here, stuff has changed for birds coming back from Mexico. I think they used to not have to be tagged or consigned. Now they have to be consigned. They’ve changed a lot. And even Canada was a big change this year, where you used to be able to bring back the birds, and then they put a big restriction on that for an outbreak of [**:00:47:07], I believe.

Ramsey Russell: They changed it slightly. And this past year, it was back and forth. One of the big changes I’m thinking of and it’s so hard. This information is so daunting at times. But one of the big changes was for years, forevermore, you could bring back whistling ducks from Mexico. And then, I don’t know, half a dozen or so years ago, bam, CITES, the convention itself had a subtle change, and now it requires a CITES permit to bring back a black-bellied or fulvous whistling duck from Mexico because in parts of their range down in Central America, they’re endangered. And that makes it problematic. What we’ve started telling people is don’t bring them back because here’s the deal, Mexico won’t issue a CITES permit until after the fact, till you’ve killed a bird. Well, it’s got to go all the way back to the national office of Mexico City to get a CITES permit, in which case you’re back home, forgotten all about your duck hunt, because you’re playing golf 45 days, 50, 60 days later. Now we deal with having to somehow get an affidavit and pay somebody to bring your bird across the border for you. And that’s very expensive and very, again, daunting. So it’s always changes.

The Role of CITES in Regulating Wildlife Imports

“CITES is an international treaty that started back in 1974. It regulates how all the countries are going to handle certain species and how we’re going to regulate the importation of them.” – Jeff Moore

Jeff Moore: And I know we had that problem with the black-bellied and the fulvous whistling duck. I believe it was Guatemala got word about their populations down there, so they listed CITES. And maybe some of your listeners don’t know, just plain CITES, real quick, CITES an international treaty that started back in 1974 that just said how all the countries are going to handle certain species, how we’re going to regulate the importation of them. CITES appendix three are animals species that countries are worried about, and they just need to require documentation on them. CITES two are a little bit more. We’re worried about them a little bit more. That could be like your spotted cats, some species of elephants. And the CITES ones are those animals are pretty much, looking at going extinct, certain species, rhinos and others. So they just need that permit. And each country regulates how they issue those permits a little bit different. I do know, I remember we had some hunters that were getting their CITES permits for Mexico. It was actually considered a certificate of origin. Some hunters had that one year. But when you get those CITES permits, you have to have them validated by my counterparts in Mexico, which is called PROFEPA, and they have to validate those permits. And you’re right, sometimes they may not issue those permits before you go down there hunting. Sometimes in rare cases, somehow they’ll get them beforehand, but they have to have them validated. We’ve had hunters come in with those permits not validated because they were flying out of Sinaloa, and they don’t have an officer in Sinaloa to stamp those. So really, it’s Nogales, Hermosillo, Mexico City is probably the closest office for PROFEPA for people hunting down in Sinaloa. But it’s not saying it can’t be done. It’s just very hard. It’s very time-consuming and takes homework to get those birds.

Ramsey Russell: So, Jeff, if you ever had to deal with an instance where an outfitter may not have had an UMA or client showed up having hunted with an outfitter that did not have an UMA, they were missing that document.

Jeff Moore: Yeah, we’ve had hunters, sometimes show up without their UMAs. But the big documents we’re looking for is the hunting service contract that acts as their hunting license and the tag. And with Mexico going to that QR code on the tag, we can always pull up the UMA now. So the UMA is not as big of a deal. It’s needed, it’s good to see so we can see the species, we can make sure now and review everything. But with that being on a QR code, we can have access to it as long as we have a phone and that. But I do have hunters. I’ve had one hunter. He was flying on the plane, they hit turbulence, and he ended up spilling his coffee all over his paperwork. When they were cleaning that up, he threw all his paperwork away. And the one thing I tell hunters is have your outfitter, whoever you’re working with in Mexico, have them send you, email you a copy of your hunting contract, a tag, if they got one assigned to you, that one more paperwork, have them send copies of that to you on your phone, on your email, because that’s the timestamp, proof that you had it beforehand. So, if you lose the paperwork, it gets thrown away, you spill your coffee on it, the Mexican customs accidentally keeps your paperwork. You got a timestamp copy.

Ramsey Russell: I’m a little Jeff. I tell them to staple it to their forehead. Just don’t lose it, and take that. I take pictures when I complete my paperwork. I take pictures with my phone. Just so I’ve got it. Because I have had clients just between the dinner table where they filled it out and the pickup truck, we tear the house apart, we can’t find it. They’ve just lost it.

Jeff Moore: And those little paper gremlins just grab their paperwork and disappear. And I agree, you’re right. Take photos with your phone, have it texted to yourself. I’ve told hunters, when you’re going down there, put a copy in your wallet, put a copy in your sock, put a copy with your trophy.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jeff Moore: Because sometimes, stuff will happen. I would always say, at a minimum, have a copy in a plastic bag with your trophy because there’s sometimes the bag will   have to get checked. The bag may not make the flight. We had one hunter, his birds didn’t make the flight. He flew in, bags never showed up. Birds showed up the next day. They were still good in the cooler. And he lucked out because he had a copy of his contract, his declaration all filled out. He had a list of who his taxidermist was because on the declaration there’s that little white block under where it says U.S. Fish and Wildlife, import export declaration for fish and wildlife. He wrote his taxidermist on there, who they’re going to. So customs was able to work with him and get his birds to his taxidermist. I think he ended up shipping them, mailing them a FedEx label, and they just fixed it out. But it’s a circuit, that changes. Sometimes we’ve had guys, they flew in here, their trophies ended up in Dallas, they flew in Dallas, and the trophies ended up here. So I would definitely put a copy with your trophies. Unless you’re go hold on to that bag with dear life.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. Speaking of which, I just wanna say this question. Do you have a preference or does it matter how my ducks are wrapped or prepared or stored for transport home?

Jeff Moore: Well, I don’t do it. A lot of hunters wrap them up in Saran wrap and I don’t know how to protect them. It does make them a little bit harder to inspect. I know when I worked up in Pembina this year, a lot of the hunters up there were using clear plastic bags and they would put all their blue-winged teals in one bag, all their green-winged teals, their shovelers in another. And it made it a lot easier to inspect because it was that clear bag. So, if someone shows up and they’re all Saran wrapped up and I or the other inspector have questions, we may have to spend time unwrapping that. And flying in through Phoenix sometimes we don’t have a whole lot of time to get to inspect your stuff and get you out so you can make your flight. And I don’t want to cause anyone to miss their flight, but I also want to make sure I’m confident of the birds I’m looking at or what they’re being said.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Jeff Moore: So, clear bag. And I think this was something we talked about this year. It would just make it a little bit easier to inspect them, verify what they are, and help get the clients all their paperwork done, get them out the door. But whatever the client wants, there’s nothing I can say, you have to do it this way. I just can recommend what would make stuff easier for me and the hunter.

Ramsey Russell: Well, the easier it is for you the quicker I’m off to my connecting flight.

Jeff Moore: Oh, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: That’s why I asked. So, I’ve got my paperwork, I’ve got my birds piled up in a clear plastic bag for the inspector to look at quickly. I land in Phoenix or at my US customs border port, and now I’ve got three federal agencies to deal with. I’ve got to satisfy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service import. I’ve got to satisfy the US Department of Agriculture, who is concerned about things like avian influenza. Therefore, coming from Mexico and really coming from anywhere outside the United States right now, I’ve got to consign my birds and show them on my form to a USDA-approved facility. And then I’ve got to deal with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I’ve got three monumental, huge federal agencies, I’ve got to clear and satisfy. Jeff, how do those agencies work together? What are the roles and responsibilities of each?

Jeff Moore: So, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they do both. They’ll clear the firearms. They actually regulate the import requirements for multiple agencies. I think it’s like over 30. And they’ll have specially trained officers called agricultural specialists that do the enforcement for USDA. And that’s something that happened back after 9/11 when all their agency merged. So, U.S. Customs, your ag specialist, they’re going to be inspecting the birds for that. If we’re not there, we don’t have inspectors at all the ports, customs does. We’ll cross-train, we’ll train them on how to do it or what to look at for us. So, in Phoenix, you’ll come in, you’ll talk to that first officer, you’ll show your passport. The big thing is to make sure that officer understands you do have birds or you were hunting because usually we’ll bring everybody in just to double-check those without trophies. We’ll try and process them first because we can get them out. And then the birds, unfortunately, they take a little bit longer than deer. So we’ll bring them in. And then if I’m there, I’ll be looking at my paperwork while they’ll start the paperwork to send them to an approved establishment because part of the regulations right after your favorite part, 50 CFR 20.64, is 20.65 processing requirements. And we do have requirements that the birds have to be imported in a manner, you know, under USDA requirements. And it says, if you’re bringing them in for mounting purposes to a taxidermist. Let me back up. So it says, no person shall import migratory game birds killed in any foreign country except Canada unless such birds are dressed except as required. You got the fully feathered wing under 20.63 and the head and feet are removed, provided that this shall not prohibit the importation of legally taken fully feathered migratory game birds consigned for mounting purposes to a taxidermist who holds a current taxidermist permit issued to him pursuant to 21.63 of this chapter and who is licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to decontaminate such birds.

Ramsey Russell: Yep.

Jeff Moore: So, USDA, they don’t allow the raw bird meat to come in for consumption. So the birds can only come in for taxidermist. So they’re coming in, they’re doing that process, making sure that taxidermist is licensed under USDA to decontaminate the birds. They’ll draw up all that paperwork. We’ll inspect the birds, make sure they match the declaration, and then we’ll bag them up and send them off. So there is a lot we do, try to work together. So it’s seamless, they all come in together with little input as possible. Because sometimes I think the biggest issue is hunters come in and that taxidermist isn’t licensed, where they take it to.

Ramsey Russell: And those of you all listening, we actually got a link at getducks.com under sporting travel resources to USDA’s approved facility list. You can search by state and come up with somebody near you. I just want to throw that in there real quick. Jeff, go ahead.

Jeff Moore: Oh, yeah, that’s perfect. USDA does look to make sure those birds go there. We do follow up occasionally, too.

Ramsey Russell: Well, that’s what the form 1678 that customs is supposed to generate does, my understanding. When I come in, I’ve got those three documents plus my declarations form you all are looking for. And what I’m supposed to do if the ag agent does his job, what I’m supposed to have is a copy of a USDA form 1678 that I take a copy from my records, but one gets sent to the veterinarian for that state that notifies him. Oh, some birds came in, a controlled substance of sorts, came into my state, I need to follow up with that USDA-approved facility. That’s what’s supposed to work. Not to say it always does, but that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Jeff Moore: And I think they even send one to the taxidermist.

Ramsey Russell: Yep.

Jeff Moore: So he gets notified. And we’ve had cases, where hunters have decided to divert their birds to another location. And when we find that out, we’ll actually get with an agent, a special agent gets involved, we’ll seize those birds, and then usually the hunters will be getting a ticket in the mail.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, not a good deal.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. So, it’s not, if you need to divert it, call up customs and say, hey, I need to use a different location, but you need to get it there in a timely manner. But we try to all work together. We try to understand each other’s roles and work together to make it as painless as possible for the hunter.

Ramsey Russell: Why might that protocols vary among different ports of entry? Coming through Phoenix, I tell everybody, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, it’s just the way it’s always been. But some of these ports are different. And I’m like, why does it got to be this hard? Because it’s all the same rules.

Jeff Moore: And for the fish and wildlife, our requirements for Mexico should be uniform across the board. But I can’t really speak, there might be other, I haven’t been to other ports outside of Dallas a little bit, and there might be requirements just unique to that port or because of how that port is run that might have them different. So I can’t really speak on that. Outside of fish and wildlife requirements, customs may have different staffing levels or different requirements, or there may be a state issue I don’t know about or USDA. So that’d be something if there’s another agency really to ask them. I wish I could get more, but I can’t. I’m just speaking outside my area. But for fish and wildlife, our requirements should be pretty much the same. And if we know there’s a large group of duck hunters coming in and you let us know, hey, we got 20 or 30 duck hunters coming in. We’ll try and get the inspector to meet that flight. I’m willing the other inspector that’s here, she’s willing. We’ll adjust our time, we’ll just, we’ll come in later or do something to help be there to clear that and make sure there’s no headaches. It’s a little bit, I’ve found taking 20 or 30 minutes here or there might save me a lot of trouble and save the hunters a lot of trouble downstream because, like, I’d rather a hunter call me and bug me for 20 minutes, ask me a question that I’ll take the time to explain it because that may save me from having to tell them, hey, you’re missing some paperwork. I got to seize stuff, that’s the last thing I’m going to do.

Ramsey Russell: Here’s a question. When is it necessary to use an official port? There’s a lot of ports around the United States. Some are official, and I mean by US Fish and Wildlife, and some are not. And here’s what I’m getting at. When and why is it okay to use any port? Like, if I’m coming in through Canada with my legally harvested birds and whatnot, I can squirt through any customs, border patrol, I can come across to any port. Coming back from Mexico, I can come through any one of the half dozen ports there in Arizona or elsewhere. But it’s not okay to bring, for example, birds from the Netherlands into Minneapolis. I had a client get an ugly letter one time because he came in through an unofficial port. When is it okay and when is it not? I mean, what are the rules?

Jeff Moore: So the rules are listed under 50 CFR part 14. We have certain ports, I think we have 17 ports, what we call designated or official ports. They’re large ports where we have inspectors at them. There are going to be ports like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami. Those are the portsthat we authorized through our regulations saying this is where wildlife can come in without special permits, or this is where they should come in. Now, we give some breaks to people to select for border ports, we say for hunters or U.S. residents are hunting in the United States are taking birds from Canada or Mexico and importing those birds. So first those birds have to be lawfully taken. And US residents bringing in lawfully taken wildlife from Canada or Mexico. We have assumptions, and they may be imported or exported for non-commercial purposes for any port of entry. So that’s why your clients can fly in from Hermosillo to Phoenix and use Phoenix. Now, if you had a taxidermist that was flying in with birds and he was going to use those birds in his taxidermy business to showcase his business or for commercial purposes somehow, we’ll get those. People want to bring in wildlife to sell, then they need additional permits. They have to use those bigger ports. So someone bringing in deerskin cowboy boots wouldn’t be able to use Phoenix because that’s commercial. So we break it down by commercial, personal use, and where they can and can’t come in. And then there’s that whole section. So that’s, and I would have to look at that. So Minneapolis is one of those designated ports. So it comes down to where you’re bringing the birds from, where you’re flying into, and the purpose of what you have. It’s a little bit dry. I’m sure some of your listeners are hitting that coffee or caffeine right now to wake up after that.

Ramsey Russell: Well, it’s good information, dry as it may be sometimes. But, I mean, we all want to do the right thing. Here’s a question. What should traveling hunters do preceding travel? Who should they call or email and what should they tell them? And here’s what I’m getting at. We’re all grown adults here. We’ve got to take responsibility for our imports. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so what should I do preceding my trip to make this easy, make your job easy, make my import go smooth? What should I do, Jeff?

Jeff Moore: Well, I would say definitely do your homework. If you’re going to a country, don’t depend as much as I hate to say it, there’s a lot of misinformation out there on social media, Facebook groups. Just because some other guy on some forum says this is what you need, double-check, make sure that’s legitimate. They can always call a Fish and Wildlife inspector office. I believe I sent you the link to where all our offices are.

Ramsey Russell: I’ll post that up on this description. Yep.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. And they can always call. I always welcome people. If they’re going to Mexico, call me, ask what they need. And if I got to talk to 100 hunters and answer all the same questions and explain everything, I’d rather do that than seize one trophy. Like you said, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. And they can do that, you can go onto our website, find information there. If they have questions, we have a general email account they can send an email to and ask where they’re going to. There’s a nice website called Species Plus that you can put in the species, and it’ll tell you whether it’s listed on their CITES or not. But the biggest, I would say, is just call, contact the wildlife inspector office for the area you will be clearing.

Ramsey Russell: So if I’m coming through Phoenix, call the wildlife inspector. If I’m coming, call the wildlife inspector.

Jeff Moore: Yeah, that’s the easiest, but do a little bit of homework online. Look at it if you can try and review the foreign laws for that other country. If you’re going to go, someone says, hey, I got duck hunting down in Panama. Ask them if they can send you the Panamanian law. Try to translate that.

Ramsey Russell: Welcome to my world. Yeah, I get invited to all kinds of places. And, I’m to the point, is it legal, are the species protected, is firearm possession legal. Yeah, I mean, it’s a big world out there and there’s a lot of hunting going on. I got invited to go to the Philippines one time. Well, guess what? Philippine ducks are endangered, and there are probably laws for me holding a gun in the Philippines, if I can even get ammo. You know what I’m saying? So, yeah, it’s worth asking questions before you just jump on a plane and fly out to a hunt. Especially if you want to bring birds back into the United States.

Jeff Moore: Oh, yeah. And that’s the big thing, just do some homework, ask around. Don’t fully depend on someone else. Always research, do your research, ask around. Try and figure out, just so you have everything there.

Ramsey Russell: What about maintaining? Okay, so I’ve come through customs, you all, rubber stamp, boom. You’ve cleared my 3177. I’ve got my 1678. I’m fixing to. I tell everybody, five business days. Get your birds to your USDA-approved facility. Now can I just pitch all those papers or how long do I need to hold them papers for?

Jeff Moore: Me, myself, I would hold on to them. This is me personally, I would just hold on to the paperwork forever.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jeff Moore: Anything I do, I got a house I bought 20 years ago. I still have all that mortgage paperwork.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Jeff Moore: There’s not a requirement really to hold on to it, but it’s a good idea to hold on to it, especially if you’re dealing with CITES animals and you might be moving and you want to make those items part of your household goods. Say you got a bunch of hunting trophies and you hit the lottery and you want to move somewhere or you want to move down to South America, Argentina, go chasing the doves down there full time. If you have all that paperwork, it makes it easier to show how you legally acquired everything. I still have my hunting license and my tag from my first deer I took back in 2000. So 23 years ago. I just had it mounted the back of the plaque. That’s me, there’s no requirement that they have to keep, the regular stuff, but it’s a good idea. Maybe have an electronic copy, make photos of it. Now, if they start getting into endangered species, it should be. But we’re going to have, more than likely, we’re going to have a record of that. And we try to upload all the declarations up into our electronic system. We keep hard copies for five years. So, if you keep it for about a couple of years, you should be good. Just that way you can show proof. I wouldn’t say as soon as you’re walking out the door of the customs area, toss all your paperwork because the state game warden, he may come by, he may ask questions. You’re going to a taxidermist and he may ask questions. And we’ve had this deer hunters get stopped because they don’t have to take their deer home and the game, where they’re processing it at home, and they cut off the tag and everything. And then the game wardens call me to verify their stuff. And if they had the paperwork, it probably would have saved them a little bit of time. So there’s no requirement they have to keep it. It’s just whatever they feel safe with.

Ramsey Russell: Jeff, we’ve been talking about importing wildlife into the United States, and your last answer just made me wonder, what about a Canadian or a foreign national coming to America to shoot snow geese or shoot mallard or shoot something they don’t have back home, or a white-tailed deer or an elk or whatever? Does the United States require an export permit for them to go home with their trophy?

Jeff Moore: So if you had someone come in from a foreign country, they would have to have the proper state license. So you have someone from Argentina come up to go duck hunting back home in Mississippi with you. Well, to export those birds back to Argentina from the U.S., he would have to file a declaration for, instead of import, the export of those birds. You would probably get with the nearest, depending on where he’s flying. So say, he is flying out of Dallas, he would talk to the Dallas inspectors, file all the paperwork, he’d show the 3177, he’d show his Mississippi hunting license, his federal duck stamp, and any other required documents.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Jeff Moore: So it’s the same thing just in reverse. He would have to show they legally hunted the birds, legally possess the birds, and follow the declaration, saying what he’s taking out of the country.

Ramsey Russell: But they don’t just put them in their suitcase and fly home with them. I mean, I never thought about this. I didn’t mean to through you one, Jeff, but I never had this crossed my mind, it’s like what I do, if somebody came to visit wanted to bring something home, so I told them the right thing. The safe act would be, if there are going out of the Dallas to fly home would be check with Fish Wild life service on the exit.

Jeff Moore: Yeah, off the top of my head, I would have to research this. I would say definitely call, but I don’t see any requirements why they wouldn’t be able to fly out with them raw. I would have to double-check because I’ve never had that. Usually, people bring them in, they’ll get taxidermy finished here, and then they’ll get an importer to ship all their birds to them. Even big game hunters, they’ll do the same thing when they come in for deer and stuff. They’ll get them taxidermied and work with the taxidermist to ship them all back. But I’ve never had anyone ask me about raw birds.

Ramsey Russell: It never cross my mind. But it does seem to be a big difference in importing taxidermy animals versus raw skins or is there?

Jeff Moore: So taxidermy is going to be, I think there’s less disease risk or USDA may be less worried about it. The requirements for fish and wildlife will be the same.

Ramsey Russell: Be the same, okay.

Jeff Moore: Now, there’s unique to migratory birds, you can’t transport the bird for another person. So if you have all your birds done down in Mexico and you have your friend go down and pick them up, and he’s bringing in all these birds, there might be questions, if there’s a violation of that versus if it was a freight forwarder or importer, you know, how they coming in. So, buddy goes down, gets all your birds thrown in his bag, we’re probably going to have an issue there. But if you have them shipped up and you’ve got all the proper shipping documents, showing how they’re coming up, we’re not, probably won’t have that. And that’s something that we have to do on a case-by-case basis.

Challenges of Bringing Birds Across the Border

“Hunters sometimes aren’t aware of all the paperwork needed, and then they find themselves at the border missing essential documents. It’s the last thing we want to happen.” – Jeff Moore

Ramsey Russell: What online resources exist for hunters to properly prepare and make themselves better aware of proper import documentation? Some of this stuff we’ve talked about, and where can they find assistance? To me personally, it’s a very daunting task to have to read this stuff. It really is. It’s scattered everywhere. There are a lot of statutes everywhere. We’ve covered bringing birds in from Mexico and really bringing birds in from most anywhere else. Everywhere we go as a broker, Azerbaijan requires an export permit, New Zealand requires an export permit. And we’ve got those protocols in place. But for the listener that might have a trip coming up, where can they find online resources or where can they find assistance?

Jeff Moore: Well, our website, there’s our website they can look at. USDA has a real great website going over importing and exporting stuff, whether you’ll need permits. CBP does a pretty good job on their website directing people to USDA or us. The biggest is when I start looking at foreign countries and the requirements, I start looking at their agency laws. So if I’m looking at stuff from Canada, I’ll start finding their game agency. And it does get a little bit hard to find for the public. We do have access to be able to get game laws from countries, ask them for copies of their laws, but it is hard for the individual to find them. Sometimes I’ll look at a country’s law, and it’s a lot of learning to use Google to search that information. So, unfortunately, there’s not a good website. Maybe there’s someone out there listening that might go through all that and try to get all the different country laws on one site and translate them into English. But that’s a task. And that is one of the downsides to hunting internationally, is finding all that information and easy to use site.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. Jeff, I sure do appreciate you, man. I mean, to those you all listening, I know that’s a lot of dry material. It is just paperwork and protocol, but it’s a pretty big deal. It’s a pretty big deal. You can’t just shrug it off, you know what I’m saying? It’s a big deal. And we try to make it easy. Guys like Jeff Moore try to make it easy, but there are laws and it’s a big freaking deal. It’s not like a speeding ticket either. It can be a very big deal. And anyway, Jeff, I sure do appreciate you taking the time to explain in detail a lot of this topic matter.

Jeff Moore: Thank you very much. And hopefully, your clients get a lot of information. I know I have a face for podcasts, but unfortunately, I don’t have a voice for podcasts. But yeah, there’s a lot of information. One other thing I would warn hunters, if you’re flying with your buddies, don’t put all your birds in one bag. Try and have your birds in your own bag. Because the one thing I always worry about is two or three guys are traveling and once a little bit tight on bags. They put all the birds in one guy’s bag, and then the other two guys don’t make the flight. Oh, now that guy’s flying in with birds for another person in his bag.

Ramsey Russell: That is a pretty important rule because each individual is responsible for importing his own bird. Is that right?

Jeff Moore: Yes. And just like when you’re out duck hunting in Mississippi or Dakotas or whatever, you can’t just throw all your birds in one pile. You gotta be able to separate and show which birds are yours and which are your buddies. And that goes back to the old times when Fish and Wildlife first started and we were called duck cops. We had agents just going out, going after those market hunters that were just decimating, the duck populations with those big old punt guns, and that’s some of those initial laws for the migratory bird act on the hunting requirements, that’s where they came from, so we can protect our birds so future generations have birds.

Ramsey Russell: Jeff, what about tagging requirements? If I’m coming in from Mexico, just my birds, is there a tagging requirement?

Jeff Moore: No, because Mexico only gives one tag for 25 birds.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. So I don’t need to necessarily write my name and address and signature and all that stuff on each bird.

Jeff Moore: Not till you get to the taxidermist. It’s a great idea. I would not discourage anyone from doing that. I know some of the ranches down there when they put the birds in, they’ll put duct tape with their name and the species. So, you get the right ducks, and the right ducks belong to you. But I’m not, if you show up and you say, these are my ducks, I’m going to treat it as that. Because just don’t be mixing them together. And then I’ve never had this, but I just want to cover it. Don’t be bringing back bird-processed, bird sausage, duck sausage livers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that or heard that from Mexico. I think that’s mainly a Canada hunting thing.

Ramsey Russell: We talked about this formerly about, the bird flu versus U.S. Fish Wildlife, Wildlife Import, bird flu, USDA. It’s been a while, ten years almost, let’s say, since somebody asked this question. But back in the good old days, I could go white-wing dove hunting in Mexico and bring back a 48-quart ice chest full of dove breasts. And now you can’t do it because bird flu, I mean, now to bring back those doves, they’ve got to be partially cooked or something like that. Well, good luck leaving a head or wing attached and partially cooking your dove breasts to bring them back. So that bird flu did create a round peg, square whole situation.

Jeff Moore: Yeah. And I’ve never been able to figure out a way to meet both of our requirements on that because we’re requiring that fully feathered wings so we can ID the species of those. So we know what it is, and USDA has a very important job to do. They’re trying to protect everything. We saw what happened with the price of eggs when that bird flu hit all those chicken farms and wiped them out and they couldn’t sell those eggs because they had to use them to raise the next generation of chickens. So, no, it is something we got to be careful about.

Ramsey Russell: Jeff, thank you again. And folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of Duck Season Somewhere. I hope you enjoyed it and got as much out of it as I did. See you next time.