Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa How long to get trophies back?

You can hire a broker like Coppersmith, or if you have a whole day to do this, you can easily clear them yourself. It's a time consuming process, but not complicated and not a secret. Customs and F&W will walk you through it.

When they arrive you will be called by the shipper to come get the crate. When you arrive to get the crate they will hand you the file with the import documents. You then take this to F&W........... Oh forgot to mention this. The shipper will begin charging you storage almost instantly. If you cannot get there for a week you will have additional charges for storage.

Okay, so you make an appointment, or simply walk into the Federal F&W office and tell them what you are doing. They will hand you a pad of Import forms. You will need to fill them out. Nothing awfully complex. You have all the answers on the documents provided by the shipper.

Example: flight number, date, carrier,
then: Species, Latin name and common name, amount, Country of origin, License numbers. All this is included with the import packet from the Taxidermist/Dip Pack and shipper. On a very rare occasion they did not include latin names. If you don't know all the latin names of the game then bring that info with you. You know what's coming and can sort that out now.

After F&G signs off and stamps the import doc's for you. The next stop is US customs. Hand them the Federal F&W forms. They will ask you if everything is yours, and what the value is. You may want to have a conversation with the Taxidermist to come to an agreement on the prices shown on the invoices in dollars, not rand. I have had very tough assertive near arguments with Customs on this. When the amount shown is simply a number US Customs defaults to American dollars. If it's in Rand it could be 7-10 times that amount.

If the Taxidermist lists US dollars for the amounts you agree to with him then you will pay tax on this amount. He wants to list it for the insured amount. You want to have it listed as low as possible. You will pay tax in finished goods. There is no Tax on dipped and packed raw product.

After you pay the Customs debt, they will stamp your papers "cleared" and you go pick up the crate.

The Union workers on the dock at the freight terminal will not be much help to you. They will set the crate on the back of your truck......... that's it. They will not uncrate your trophies to help you fit them into an SUV, nor will there be a place to do this in the shipping area. You need to have a pickup truck that they will simply place the crate for you.

If anything in that crate is owned by another person you cannot do this. Multiple owners in the same crate must be done by a Broker. You cannot clear customs with items you do not own. That requires a Brokers License.

I have done this 50 times or more now in the Seattle Airport. It's gone the way I describe it almost every time. The times it has not, have been nobody available at the F&W office on the day I show up, or some problem with the paperwork once or twice. Also one single time, federal F&W went to inspect the crate personally. That was with a 20 something girl F&W officer and her Mentor so he could teach her some of the process. I was actually asked up front if they could do this as part of her training. I agreed straight away, knowing that that I could use favors down the road someday!

Any other questions let me know.

My trophies from July 2013 in the Northwest are sitting at the warehouse in Jo'burg ready to be shipped. Found out this week one of the permits hadn't been issued yet. As soon as that's ready, will have them sent.

I used Fauna & Flora for brokerage.

My four shoulder mounts and back skins fully mounted and tanned from June 2013 arrived Atlanta on Dec 25. They are currently at F&W awaiting licenses which should be done next week and pick up later in the week. 6 1/2 months from bullet to wall ain't bad.

Coppersmith called today for payment of $400 and they will be picked up tomorrow. In the box are a Buffalo, a red heartbeest, a waterbuck and a warttie plus all the back skins and a zebra rug for my booking agent. These are all head and shoulder mounts so it should be a big box.

I hunted in the Limpopo this past late July. My trophies landed in Chicago about three weeks ago. The skins went to a Michigan tannery and my taxidermist has the horns, in Minnesota. He sent me a pic of the horns last week.