Hi All,

Not having to do with particularly smelly shells, but with Customs and
airport security in Miami... In 1981 I spent a month in Costa Rica
collecting shells and other biological specimens (most of which were
destined for The Science Museum of Minnesota's collections).

Having had the luxury of time, all shells had been well-cleaned, gastropods
with percs were plugged with cotton with percs inside. Small herps were
fully fixed and wrapped in layers of preservative-soaked gauze (except for
one jar of small poison-arrow frogs)...also had one jar of assorted
arthropods in minimal fluid for the trip home.

First stop was customs...I had a letter from a museum curator with all the
pertinent info, which saved alot of potential grief, but the agent wanted
to know why all the snails had cotton plugs in the apertures. After my
thorough explanation, he still wasn't satisfied, saying I couldn't imagine
all the ways he's found drugs packaged to be smuggled into the country.
(One example he gave was using live tarantula shipments...he'd noticed in
one large shipment that more than usual were dead...he broke a few of them
open, and they were stuffed with cocaine). I spent the next thirty minutes
pulling the cotton from a large percentage of the gastropods I'd collected,
until he was satisfied. Almost made me wish I hadn't collected so many
nerites! With that finished, I decided to have a couple beers while waiting
for my connection. He got me kinda wound up, you know...

Now I was ready to go through it all again with my carry-on cases at
airport security.
My collection cases were packed so tightly, the x-ray couldn't give the
operator a decent idea of what I was carrying, so she asked what I had in
there...I told her exactly what was there, but she wanted to see for
herself. When I offered to open and unwrap things for her to inspect, she
said she wanted to do it herself. I asked if "creepy-crawlies" upset her
and she just gave me a look and proceeded to unwrap one of the jars. She
had picked the one with the assorted arthopods...seeing all those legs,
claws, pincers, etc. was too much. She let loose a scream, and I was pinned
down at gunpoint by half a dozen officers so quickly, I was really
surprised. After everything settled down a bit, one of the officers asked
the woman why she screamed. He gave her such a look of disdain, I'm sure
she remembers it as clearly as I do. Apologies were given and accepted, and
we all went our separate ways either laughing or scowling. I have to admit,
I was one of those laughing. Those previously mentioned beverages were well
worth their inflated price on that occasion!

Ken Zentzis
Wichita, Kansas

Peter Egerton wrote:

> Re, smelly ones.
>
> How do you find customs at airports, etc, are with the smelly shells?
> Last time I came back from Mexico, via LA, my bags were searched and
> the lady in customs was rather annoyed with me. Have you ever had them
> confiscated for such reasons? Bringing dead smelly biological material
> over the border...