Shiiping dead insects from other countries into the USA

[nitinra]

Hi all,

I ordered a bunch of butterflies ~300 specimens from insect-sale.com. Has anyone recently ordered insects from them into the US? Did it arrive in good condition without any issues with customs etc? Do I need a permit to get this delivered to me in the US? I will be using it for personal purposes and I am located in Montana.

TIA!

[wollastoni]

Yes you need some permits/custom declaration.
I will let our American members give you more details.

[kevinkk]

That was ambitious. Multiple topics about importing have popped up here from time to time. Your purpose doesn't matter, the Gov. wants to
be involved.
I have experience circumventing the process, but it's not recommended, I can only say it's a risk and if you do get your shipment, I wouldn't try it again, you may get into trouble. You as the recipient are solely responsible, not the exporter.

[vabrou]

I have watched decades of discussions and posting about these very same matters in this forum and others. Thus far, I have chosen not to participate by giving my true knowledge, because there is an inordinate amount of self proclaimed unknowledgeable experts giving their uninformed meaningless opinions. You don't need a damn thing either in or out of the USA. But, there are some things to address as: your public reputation, is your name already on a list of dishonest people, or obvious things like are you operating a business selling insects, or are you importing bird-wings... But the greatest problems occurs is when you put yourself on these potential watch list by contacting someone in government to ask questions or even more foolish by reporting your shipments. Already the massively expansive government regulators continues to grow by leaps and bounds daily without safe-fails. 99%+ of these shipments are not logged in any database. For what purpose would you do this self-inflicted foolishness? There are instances where these obtrusive regulations are probably helpful, but the majority of these regulations are nothing but massive government over reach by persons attempting to prove their importance and self-worth to the public. These clowns attempting to enforce these unsubstantiated regulations once employed, are there for their lifetimes. In 100% of the cases these regulations were falsely based upon falsely published research by elitist persons who have never done anything meaningful away from a computer. This entire matter is an unregulated enforcement and monetary taxation for the remainder of your lifetimes. These regulations are copied and pasted across the world by others who also are using these to justify their employment.

Want to see extremes, look at India who have passed laws outlawing any and all collecting and research even to dissecting earthworms by surgical medical training universities. Even government forestry researchers are arrested and their collections confiscated by other India's governmental agencies. The most ridiculous thing about India is that each state in India has passed their own individual sets of regulations and laws and in their government have engaged in fistfights and rowdiness involving throwing furniture at each other attempting to discuss some of these matters.

I learned long ago to never provide any usable information to just anyone. Novice collectors fall victim to this thinking they will elevate their lack of stature by telling all they know so it get on the official record. These government people will use your information to pass regulations stopping you from further research and collecting what you may have first newly discovered.

The further answer to these unjust enforcement regulations regardless of country, such enforcement often a consequence of where you live in your respective country. Out in less populated areas, few shipments are seen and bothered with; in big cities a lot more encounters occur.

I know those who have collected and shipped (in and out) of the USA for over 60-70 years, involving millions of insect specimens across the globe, and never once obtained any permit whatsoever, even once for any reasons. Also, if your country is an enemy of the other country involved in these shipments, expect negative results and more problems.

Persons who have asked me for advice about these matters more often listen to the misinformation found on the internet and forums like this one, and who ignored my warnings later write to me, they called anyway despite what I warned them not to do, and have subsequently fallen into the rabbit-hole to government oblivion.

How do I know these things? Well I remember when highest quality insect pins sold here in the USA for $3.00/1000 US. I also remember when some bird-wing butterflies sold here in the US for $2.00/each. I also have personally collected numerous billions of insects here in my state of Louisiana. So I have actually experienced these things I speak of. I have personally shipped in and out of the US more than 700,000 insects. I'll be 75 in two days, so there is a lot of history and experiences behind my opinions. One big negative about going on record and obtaining permits is that these corrupt reprobates whether it be government or personal acquaintances you though were friends, will eventually use your permits to shut down all your future personal entomological activities.

Here in the US we have constitutionally granted free speech to express our personal opinions whether others like it or not. In some countries one can be executed or may disappear for expressing their personal or truthful opinions. Before thinking of deleting opinions given here, one should carefully consider the financial future and ability to continue business and the ramifications of preventing opinions you may personally disagree with from appearing. E.g. I have not called for the removable of decades of false and nonsensical anecdotal opinions about these matters found on this, and similar forums. I have noted when peoples opinions are deleted in these forums, they and others seeing this occurring don't bother returning, because they see that the opinions are false and one-sided.

unrelated jpg for attention
From my 2004 generic revision of the moth genus Baileya in the USA, Citation:
Brou Jr., V.A. 2004. Two new species of Baileya Grote (Nolidae: Risobinae) from the southeastern United States. Jour. Lepid. Soc. 58:94-99.

[vabrou]

A bit more concerning collecting and shipping permits. What is misunderstood about these matters is the the regulations concerning these matters have been hijacked by the employees of the regulatory agencies over the decades to be applied against any persons regardless of being regulated by these regulation or not. The vast majority of all of these collecting and shipping regulations apply only to commercial aspects of these matters. They do not apply to others. To know if they should apply to you, you need to find the initial published regulations and read ad understand them well. This is easier said than done as your government has passed tens of thousands of new regulations every year, year after year after year. I did this a couple of decades back and discovered what I am saying here is true. If you call your government and ask them about these matters, it will result in a situation akin to you calling the Internal Revenue Service (tax collector) and talking to 100 different persons there. The result will be about 100 different answers to those questions. Not one of those IRS agents have any idea what the true answer is to these questions.

A decade or so ago,I had a National Forest Service Ranger insist that I obtain a collecting permit before he would allow me to collect on Nat. For. Service lands. I told him I did not need to obtain a permit to collect insects in the National Forest. I told him I had a copy from the Federal Government office of the National Forest Service that says I do not need a permit. He didn't care what I said. I have to request permission from him to collect. I told him ok, and the very next day contacted the Forest Service Head Office in Washington D.C. and told them the incident and requested they issue a revised letter and review this matter for all Nat. For. lands throughout the country. Two weeks later I received an apology and a new letter updating the regulations across the 50 states of the USA. Bottom line, it was found that this Forest Ranger had made up his own set of regulations without authorization for dispensing permits in order to collect insects in the National Forest. The Head Office said they would straighten out that wayward employee. Since then I never heard from him again, but I have collected in that Nat. For. area numerous dozens of times since then without any permits.

This is the situation which has similarly occurred numerous times concerning collecting and shipping regulations in the USA. Too many experts talking about things they know little to nothing about. The same situations have occurred with the postal service here in the USA. I have shipped/received insects every year since 1964.

Here I am collecting at that National Forest location.

Here is the free access link to the response. https://www.academia.edu/540099/Revisit ... _2011?sm=b

[Chuck]

This comes up constantly.

What should be done by an interested party is to analyze the current import regulations for personal use. The easiest way is to line-out the sections, paragraphs, and sentences that don't apply to personal use (eg. anything to do with commercial, institution, etc.) which leaves less to examine. Then look for caveats that make sections inapplicable (often called "loopholes" by politicians, fear mongers, and their acolytes: loopholes are not real, they do not exists- there is compliance, and non-compliance.)

With that, one should be able to determine the requirements and publish a summary.

I did this 20 years ago with import regulations when I was importing. I carried a printed copy of the laws with me, because enforcement does not know all the laws, they are not trained on the specific parts of the laws (particularly the caveats). I have already done it here for CITES, and I did it just out of interest concerning the export of Chinese CITES II specimens.

Instead of going round and round, a party that is interested in importing should do a bit of homework.