Shipping Crabd and snail?Illegal?

Koop

AC Members
Nov 13, 2007
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LA Baby!
I heard it may be illegal to ship these creatures.... does anyone know if it is or not?
 
It is illegal to ship snails at all without a USDA permit. Depending on the species, you may or may not be able to obtain a permit. For Pomacea Bridgesii, permits are available for all 50 states still, and you can apply for one by going to the USDA website. It's free, I believe, and very easy to do.
For any other Pomacea species, they won't give you a permit, as they consider all other Pomaceas plant-eating pests. Spixies are very difficult to obtain permits for right now, and there's the possibility of a ban for them in the near future. Red ramshorns don't require permits, as far as i know, but giant columbian ramshorns do.
 
The permit thing sure isn't stopping a lot of people though.
 
of course not, most aquabid sellers and ebay sellers don't have a permit. however, if you are caught shipping without a permit, you can be fined, have your snails confiscated, and any snails you shipped to others can be confiscated as well.
with the recent USDA crackdown on snails shipped illegally, i think it's worth the effort to get a permit.
 
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