Buying coral and fish from USA
 

Any issues crossing the border with Fish or Coral from US? I am going down to US this weekend and was looking at bringing some back.

I've never done that, but I think you need a cities certificate to bring coral across. Not sure about fish

As far as I know you require a Cites certificate and documentation for coral and fish to cross the border either direction

I actually inquired with a US coral seller just yesterday and this is reply I received...

I'm not sure about the fish and wildlife part as we are Canadian, but sounds like a big pain to me. Surely this has been looked into many times before for cost reasons and added selection for sure

Here is an overview

http://www.livestockusa.org/CITES.html

Boarder Crossing
 

It depends on the location. I have crossed the boarder many times with coral, inverts and fish. Depending on the crossing they all want different things. I have not been asked for a cites certificate, it is only required when they suspect smuggling, CITES are for protected species. The most that they have asked for is a receipt, location harvested and the species. I have had suppliers out of Florida send me a NAFTA certificate of Origin.

From what I know there are three reasons why they would disallow your purchase. Those would be along the lines of smuggling, quarantine or improper paper work.

Understand that I have everything cross a boarder that is very small where things are more relaxed. I also cross frequently and know the boarder agents by first name.

You are very luck because it is a fact that you need a cites permit to bring any hard corals, live rock, seahorses etc. If you know the boarder guards buy first name and they let you bring it across, kudos for you. But that is not the norm.

Also corals are protected hence why you need the cities permit to bring them across the boarder.

+1. The difference between coral smuggling and legal coral purchasing is quite literally a piece of paper. Doesn't matter if the coral is perfectly legal to own in both Canada and the US, its threatened status in the wild, or whether or not it was aquacultured in your aunt's grow out tanks in Buffalo. If you get busted bringing something across without the proper documentation for that species, you are by definition smuggling it.

I have people I know that work in CBSA, if they know you to that friendly of a level they should not be serving you.

In most cases if you see a CBSA that you know they are supposed to step away and let someone else that has no connection with you deal with you.

Its harsh for me to say this but its not luck in that case but to a certain degree smuggling, as you are leveraging the friendship of you and the CBSA to let you bring CITES corals/fish into Canada without proper paperworks. NAFTA doesnt cover for corals. NAFTA is for hardware/goods/software developed and manufactured in the US and Canada.

Like it's been said, you're just getting lucky. Most cbsa people have no idea coral and stuff can't go across.

If they knew and let you across then they would be assisting your smuggling operations. They would lose their job and probably be charged with you.

Smuggling charges prevent travel into the us, and many other countries and will guarantee a search on every arrival back.
It's conservation officers that cbsa should be consulting when corals etc are going across.

I'm not saying that smuggling doesn't happen, but don't try and fool yourself into thinking it's Ok.

Zoas can come across just fine as long as they are on ceramic plugs and not live rock.