I’m a Canadian and I have a shipment that has been delayed at the border. It contains live animals (snakes – Ball Pythons) and thus it is very urgent that I get this shipment returned to me.

Thanks to anyone who can help. Please don’t start calling me an idiot, that’s not why I made this post.

The animals (snakes – Ball Pythons) are exiting Canada into the US. I got FedEx to send a request to US Customs and Border Protection to return the animals, because it’s out of FedEx’s hands and completely up to Border Protection. I don’t know if they take these requests seriously.
I basically just need to somehow get US Customs and Border Protection to return these animals to FedEx, and deliver them back to me.

17 comments

  2. Do you know what point of entry the shipment/animals are located? Does the shipper provide any contact information? Is it an elephant or crickets?

    Edit: You’re Canadian, are the animals coming into Canada? If that’s the case you should be contacting Canadian officials, not US officials.

  4. I’ll just thank you for taking the time to elaborate in your base note. I know there’s a low character limit for posts, but the mods are very good about granting exceptions when there’s a legitimate reason for more info (as opposed to rants).

    Good luck with the pythons.

  5. I think Border Patrol has some social media accounts and maybe posting on them would prompt them to respond as you can make it a public issue which would make them look bad if they don’t resolve it immediately. I guess if you could figure out what facility it’s in you could contact that facility directly.

  6. Honestly mate you probably fucked up. You should have used a customs broker for a live animal shipment. Fed Ex could act as a broker but I wouldn’t trust them with live animals. The fact that they can’t tell you where your package is implies that they didn’t know they were transporting animals. A customs broker experienced in animal shipments would have personally walked it through customs.

    If you failed to declare the shipment and didn’t follow import rules the animals were likely sized by customs. You are unlikely to get them back. They will either be killed or in a best case scenario donated to a zoo who can properly care for them.

  7. I’m reasonably certain you can’t ship live animals, reptiles in particular, across the border like this.

    I’m no international lawyer, but I’m pretty sure this kind of thing isn’t something you can just do via FedEx…

  9. “I illegally shipped something into the United States and now I want the evidence back.”

    Your snakes have likely been seized by customs. If you put an accurate return address on the package you may receive correspondence at that address within 60 days of seizure.

  10. I suppose you can contact their headquarters in DC but if you shipped something to the US that is prohibited it’s going to confiscated. It doesn’t matter who you contact or what you say…that won’t change. You can’t even ship snakes across our national borders. You’re probably on a list somewhere in the government already now.

  15. You’ve probably seen this already, but the fact that they have “python” in their name is going to make alot of people assume they’re dangerous. Never mind that they’re one of the most popular pet snakes out there and are always stocked in PetSmart and PetCo-there’s snakes that can kill you with “python” in their name, so they’re dangerous. So you might be in for more of a headache than you ought to be. Wish I could offer more to help.

  16. As someone from Florida, I have words to say about this…but alas I cannot. What with the whole “be civil” rule and all.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like