collecting licence?

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Connor0729

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 21, 2007
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Ontario, Canada
hey guys. i was just reading an article in Reptiles mag and it was about the author going on a collection trip in africa. do you need to have some sort of licence to do this? i was just wondering, because i think it would be cool to have an animal that was wild caught by me:D
 
There is more than just one permit you need. You'd need a collecting permit to actually get the animal. You'd need a holding permit to contain it. You'd need a transport permit to move it (internationally and state to state for most of them). Then you'd need a permit to keep a wild caught animal (again, depending on the species).

At some point, in all of those gov't hoops, you'll also pay some fees and have to prove yourself worthy in their eyes.
 
It varies from country to country, and then there is the US Customs to go through. The simplest way is contact an expediter in your target country to set up a legal collection trip, then go through an established trans-national shipper to a in country trans-shipper. I don't know about Africa but there are a couple firms in SA that set up the entire deal for you. One (I forget the name of the company) does a collection trip into the Peruvian Amazon, then packs and ships the fish with documents to a transhipper in Florida. From there you do an airport to airport transfer for pick-up.
 
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