buying fish on vacation

Rafini

Piranha
MFK Member
Jun 28, 2012
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Calgary, Canada
Is it possible to buy fish on vacation, and get them shipped on the same flight home and pick them up from the airport, like a courier would to deliver them?

This may seem like a really odd question but I`m going to the philippines for 3 weeks in September and they have lots of nice FH and other fish for essentially very good prices.
I figured I could pick up a nice quality FH to grow out.

most if not all US sites won`t ship to canada and I find a lot of what I see locally is over priced. I`m just wondering if its possible, as it is an attractive option.


I just wanted to add, I know a lot of good stuff is available in Eastern Canada but I have never received or shipped fish so thats why I am asking if I could essentially ship it back with me and receive it while I am at the airport. We can keep snakeheads here but a lot of ornamental species are overpriced.
 

justarn

Arapaima
MFK Member
May 24, 2011
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Kent UK
best bet is to check with your airline, i know here in the uk we dont need any special permissions to import tropical ornammental fish.
 

Oddball

Administrator
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Apr 27, 2005
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Bama
State to state is usually no issue. However, in country to country shipping, you will be required to ship via a licensed shipper with an export permit. The fish would have to be received by a licensed importer/trans-shipper after the package clears customs at a main inbound hub of the airline. Freight, customs declaration fees, and tran-shipper fees would have to be paid in addition to the cost of the fish. These provisions make small shipments a poor economical choice since the costs cannot be spread out to a large multi-specimen shipment. It's these additional fees that make some species much more expensive than they are in their countries of origin.
You cannot bring the fish in with your luggage as pets since pets must be quarantined prior to shipping for a time determined by the country origin and destination trade agreements. Pets must also have veterinarian examination and clearance paperwork.
My family had to go through all of this red tape when we moved to and back between Europe and the US.
 
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