A good friend and hunting partner went through a giant and massively expensive headache trying to get his trophies home after a hunt with Asian Mountain Outfitters in Tajiskistan a few years ago. I helped him work through some of the issues and learned some things in that process that may be of interest to others in a similar situation.
This is my general understanding and may not be the case or applicable in all places or for other species. We were dealing with Argali and Ibex.
The way the permits are supposed to be issued for these CITES animals is that the country hosting the hunt is given approval for a certain quota of these animals country wide, usually divided up between a few areas and guide services. The countries do their own population surveys, report their findings to a CITES board, and then the board approves harvest quotas that are then administered by each country.
Each guide service is supposed to issue hunting permits to their booked hunters in advance of the hunt and then report back to their govt the names of the approved hunters with permit numbers etc. That list is then supposed to be shared with whatever country the trophies are going to be imported into so that the permits and hunters can be vetted. Here in the US that is handled by US Fish and Wildlife and USDA. Hunters importing these trophies into the US need a CITES import permit from USFWS along with copies of their hunting permit and CITES export permit from the country of origin, among other things.
The way that it seems like things are actually going with this process in the foreign countries is that guide services and governments are selling as many hunts as they can, and then trying to pencil whip the paperwork after the fact to include all manner of bribes and foreign government corruption. This seems to be leading to trophies sitting around, in some cases for years, and in a few instances hunters never getting them at all.
We were told by someone involved in the process that the US was going to stop allowing Argali imports at some point because of the corruption and zero monitoring and enforcement of CITES guidelines by various foreign countries involved. They have no way to ensure the animals are legally taken in compliance with CITES etc. Not sure where that is at.
If I was going to embark on a foreign hunt, knowing what I do now, I would insist on having copies of my hunting permit and paperwork provided before the hunt, and I sure as shit wouldn't leave the country without my trophies, overseeing the export permit and shipping myself. Once you are down the road, some of these problems are really expensive, if not impossible to solve.
I am sure I don't have some of this right as it was a confusing mess to try to short through. Please offer corrections or additions if someone here knows more.
If anyone has had a similar experience or has been screwed over by shady guides or business operators over there, feel free to shoot me a PM as I have more I can share.
Good luck.
This is my general understanding and may not be the case or applicable in all places or for other species. We were dealing with Argali and Ibex.
The way the permits are supposed to be issued for these CITES animals is that the country hosting the hunt is given approval for a certain quota of these animals country wide, usually divided up between a few areas and guide services. The countries do their own population surveys, report their findings to a CITES board, and then the board approves harvest quotas that are then administered by each country.
Each guide service is supposed to issue hunting permits to their booked hunters in advance of the hunt and then report back to their govt the names of the approved hunters with permit numbers etc. That list is then supposed to be shared with whatever country the trophies are going to be imported into so that the permits and hunters can be vetted. Here in the US that is handled by US Fish and Wildlife and USDA. Hunters importing these trophies into the US need a CITES import permit from USFWS along with copies of their hunting permit and CITES export permit from the country of origin, among other things.
The way that it seems like things are actually going with this process in the foreign countries is that guide services and governments are selling as many hunts as they can, and then trying to pencil whip the paperwork after the fact to include all manner of bribes and foreign government corruption. This seems to be leading to trophies sitting around, in some cases for years, and in a few instances hunters never getting them at all.
We were told by someone involved in the process that the US was going to stop allowing Argali imports at some point because of the corruption and zero monitoring and enforcement of CITES guidelines by various foreign countries involved. They have no way to ensure the animals are legally taken in compliance with CITES etc. Not sure where that is at.
If I was going to embark on a foreign hunt, knowing what I do now, I would insist on having copies of my hunting permit and paperwork provided before the hunt, and I sure as shit wouldn't leave the country without my trophies, overseeing the export permit and shipping myself. Once you are down the road, some of these problems are really expensive, if not impossible to solve.
I am sure I don't have some of this right as it was a confusing mess to try to short through. Please offer corrections or additions if someone here knows more.
If anyone has had a similar experience or has been screwed over by shady guides or business operators over there, feel free to shoot me a PM as I have more I can share.
Good luck.
