Coral Importing

[TheWatchmanGoby]

Originally Posted by Myka

Soft corals like mushrooms aren't CITES protected, so they are easily brought across the border with limited paperwork.

Signature hard corals like LPS and SPS such as Tyree, Jason Fox, even ORA for the most part can't be legally imported. The rules can be bent though, and they can make it across. In order for a coral to get CITES to Canada from the US, they need a CITES RE-export permit. In order to get a re-export permit you have to have the original import permit from the country that the coral originally came from. For most named corals, these permits are not traced -partly because vendors don't want other vendors to know where the corals came from, partly because the paper trail is not one that is usually kept long.

So technically, very few of these corals can legally make it into Canada. However, they can come to Canada through a couple grey area loopholes. First, a certain number come across via hobbyist who buys in person and ships to himself, or buys in person and brings in his luggage. These corals may or may not be declared properly. If they are declared properly, the border guard may not know any better. If they aren't declared properly, then that is considered smuggling and there are some very hefty fines for smuggling. Second, a Tyree BlahBlah Acro re-export permit could possibly name the coral as say Acropora carduus originally imported from say Australia. Indeed the coral may be Acropora carduus originally imported from Australia, but the original CITES import permit may not actually be the permit used for that exact coral. It is A permit from THE CORRECT COUNTRY for THE CORRECT CORAL SPECIES, just not the right import shipment. Does that makes sense?

yeah. This coral business is a shady business.

[Scythanith]

Mindy hit it on the head 100%.