Alligator feet as a gift
Customs officers in Gelsenkirchen discovered four taxidermied Mississippi alligator feet in a postal package from the USA. The species is specially protected.
A curious find in a postal package
Customs officers at the Gelsenkirchen customs office discovered a curious find in a postal package at the end of November 2022.
A 48-year-old man was set to receive four Mississippi alligator feet, mounted on wooden sticks, as a gift shipment from the USA.
Mississippi alligators are listed under the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Appendix II, under European species protection law in Annex B, and under the Federal Nature Conservation Act these alligators are even specially protected. The import of live or dead animals of this species into the European Union requires a permit.
Fine threatened
Since the required permit for this shipment could not be produced, the unusual “scratch sticks” have since been confiscated.
The Federal Agency for Nature Conservation will now decide whether they will be used as a deterrent example for educational and training purposes or destroyed. Those involved face a fine.
In postal or courier traffic, the species protection regulations and documentation requirements must be observed without restriction for both import and export. Without the required permit for the import or export of species-protected animals, plants or items made from them, not only is confiscation of the goods threatened, but also the imposition of a fine. More on the topic of wildlife crime.
| You can help all animals and our planet with compassion. Choose compassion on your plate and in your glass. Go vegan. |
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
