Marcus Coltro wrote:
> I`ve had a chat with an inspector from Fish & Wild Life department here
> in Miami yesterday. She informed me that no one can bring shells on
> luggage from international flights anymore. It does not matter if it is
> a single shell or 10,000 shells. She said it is necessary a permit to
> bring shells to the Country - but they must be shipped and stored on
> their warehouses until an inspector can check if all papers are ok. I`ve
> asked the reasons and she kept saying it was to protect wild life,
> especially those shells listed on CITES - I even tried to show her that
> the only marine gastropods on CITES are Strombus gigas and Haliotis
> midae, besides Tridacnidae, Papuina pulcherrima, Achatinellidae from
> Hawaii and some fresh water bivalves. But she told me that it is the law
> and there is nothing she could do. You may call them and confirm 305 526
> 2620 - I`ve talked to Inspector Valentine.

* sometimes, of course, this kind of statement is the result of a
misunderstanding by one bureaucrat, and has no existence outside their
imagination.

But it's high time that government agencies evaluate their knowledge of
the various taxa they have the legal authority to regulate, and ask
themselves if they have sufficient knowledge to decide what the
regulations should be. If they don't have such knowledge, then the only
solution is to turn the issuing of permits over to the students of the
taxon, and decide on the criteria, or the more difficult individual
permits, by peer-review. After all, it's those who study the taxon who
know the most about the populations, how much collecting they can likely
withstand, and the value of the proposed research.

Maybe agencies can intelligently regulate game species, but even for the
majority of the endangered species, those studying them know the most
about their status, and should be consulted in deciding on how much
collecting, for what purpose, should be allowed.

fred (recently through the Ontario wringer for Crafish & herps).
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          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Thirty Years Later Expedition -
http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/thirty/thirtyintro.htm
Longterm ecological monitoring - http://fragileinheritance.org/
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
            http://www.doingnaturalhistory.com/
          http://quietcuratorialtime.blogspot.com/
     RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
   on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
    (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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