Quote:
Originally Posted by Canuckgod420
I recently purchased a coral and 2 fish from liveaquaria and had them send it to Bellingham where my wife went and picked it up. At the border they asked what she had, she told them, and they asked if it was for retail.....she said no and they sent her on her way.
Didnt seem like much of a hassle.
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The customs inspector made a mistake and you were fortunate. In his head he was probably only thinking about his D&T limit (each port of entry has policy on how much overage they'll let slide by without charging duties & taxes) rather than specific importation restrictions such as CITES. He should have referred you to secondary and called in the AgCan guy for further inspection.
It's a real crap shoot at the border with stuff that inspectors don't normally see. Other than the wide discretion individual inspectors are given there's the simple fact that it's hard to be aware of every importation restriction on every item that is declared. Sometimes you'll get through no problem, sometimes you won't.
Back in the 90s when I worked at YVR there were many times that I had to refer stuff back to secondary because I just didn't know what to do with it. And this is only when I had the luxury of a short line-up. When it was really busy our priority was simply to clear the terminal ASAP and anything other than drugs/terrorists was just booted out.