gigib

I greatly enjoy bring odd natural objects home from our trips, pretty rocks, oddly shaped pieces of wood, etc. We'll be in Sabi Sands and Kruger in a couple of weeks, does anyone know if it will be legal to bring home a bit of stuff like bones, thorns, rocks, even a ziploc full of elephant poop! (you can now think I am nuts).

I couldn't find anything about this on the web. Of course, if we aren't allowed to collect anything in Kruger we won't.

(I have 3 dried up kelp heads I found on the California cost that look like little voodoo dolls, great fun).

sandi

You're supposed to leave anything that you're tempted to take where it is.

Those cute little beagles at Baggage Claim are good sniffers and will find you out. Can be quite embarassing when they sit down next to your feet and the agent comes over and asks for you to open your bags. Elephant poop sure would be a surprise, but not appreciated.

For horns or bones, from most countries you actually need papers to remove from the country departing and approval to bring into the States. That's not to say people haven't and gotten thru, but it's not a good idea.

We're supposed to leave footsteps only and take nothing ((but photos)!

NoFlyZone

Generally you will have little problem if any entering the US with inorganic items such as rocks. I do that all the time (but, Sandi, never from parks and reserve areas). Organic items can possibly carry bacteria and other teeny stuff so they will not look kindly at thorns, bones and poop.

crellston

""Leave only foot prints, take only photgraphs"

gigib

NoFlyZone, that makes sense, I forgot about bacteria and such!Darn, no bag of elephant poop. My husband I were laughing over how we might explain that to the customs people...
"No sir, really, it's not what you think it is!"

christabir

I was given a porcupine quill from a dead porcupine ( a leopard kill). It was confiscated - we should have heeded the advice - "Leave only footprints" But we did bring home a drum and some wooden carvings from Zimbabwe. I couldn't leave there without giving the locals some type of help, and that's all we could do for them. I know - it was probably from specimen trees, but I just had to.

crellston

Many countries are becoming increasingly vigilant on vegetable or animal matter brought in to countries. We were on a RTW trip last year and when entering New Zealand from Australia my wife was reprimanded and given and official written warning for not declaring a tiny jar of honey. She was however luckier than the guy on the same plane who was fined $200 for the illegal posession of a banana!