Navigating Global Pet Import Laws

A few years ago, Amelia Barclow wanted to relocate from the United Kingdom to the San Francisco Bay Area Like any international move, it was a bit of a slog She had to ship out all of her belongings, go through a customs process, and find a new place to stay. Barkless move also involved a more unique challenge She's just in a mood Those are Barclow's pet ducks Bean and wobbles Bean. She looks like a pinto bean. She has little Brown and cream spots all over Wobbles is because he's very clumsy and very round and he tends to fall onto his back a lot like a turtle. As it turned out Getting bean and wobbles to their new home in a new country was no simple task. we would speak to someone from the USDA who worked in Lvestock, they'd be like, no they're pets. we go to the people who work For importing pets, they're like,'re liestock. There was no protocol for what we were trying to do It was to the point where I call someone and they go, o, you're the duck lady. Yeah, sorry, we can't help you. Barlow had to turn to a specialist a company that has found a lucrative niche in transporting pets all over the world We had goats, pigeons, sheep The airports have thousands of weird and wonderful animals go through tropical fish Alligators, lions, tigers, flocks of birds The occasional duck This one family had an emotional support headhog, which is absolutely fine Forree Economics Radio Network. This is the economics of everyday Things. I'm Zachary Kraket. Today Pet movers. Bean and Wobbles aren't the only jet setters in the animal kingdom Every year, around half a million pets travel by air Sometimes pet owners just want to take their dog or cat on a vacation. But there are also job relocations and permanent moves And those require an expert. My name is Mike Gaze. I'm the Maging Director of Global Pet relelocation We handle pet moves door to door anywhere to anywhere in the world. will help anyone to move their pet Global Pet relocation is based in the UK It's one of around four hundred firms around the world that specialize in domestic and international pet moves Every year, the company relocates eight hundred to one thousand pets. Ge says usually a client's first question is Can't I just put my dog next to me on the plane and do this myself We get to asked that question a lot Way more often than not, it becomes now your pet's too big or the root won't take it. There's a whole bunch of places where you're just not allowed to bring your pet in that way In some cases, you can take your pet with you in the cabin. insside a soft carrier The fee for doing that is around one hundred do to one hundred and fifty dollars each way But airlines have pretty tight restrictions around the weight and size of the pet and where you're supposed to store it It does have to be A really small pet Typically the airlines will say if it's a cat or a dog that's less than eight kilos, including the soft travel bag that they have to travel in So like eighteen pounds, something like that. show ows, Boston Terriers sometimes really small breeds. cats generally fit the profile pretty well Your pet also has to stay inside the bag under the seat in front. That's usually the published Res The majority of pets do not qualify for in cabin travel Certain animals, like rodents, snakes, and spiders usually are not allowed to hang out with you on the plane at all regardless of size Service dogs are an exception But emotional support pets may not be A few years ago, United Airlines refused service to a woman who attempted to board a plane with an emotional support peacock Even if your pet makes the cuts Many international destinations won't let you enter with a self transported animal In most cases, your pet's only option is to fly as checked in cargo in a temperature controlled cabin in the bottom of the plane It's a speespecially designed pet cabin, typically towards the front or the back of the aircraft, below deck, so not with the luggage lightights are typically dimmed down low It's nice and quiet and calming in there Gemma tapping She works in operations at Global Pet relelocations. the captain will know that there's a pet on board and therefore all of the controls are monitored continuously to make sure Everything's just right. so things like oxygen, pressure you know, temperatures, et cetera Even though they kind of go in the same part of the airport, everything is totally separate. They'll have their own van that will be air conditioned from the warehouse to the cargo door Pets typically are the last passengers to go on board. So it won't be like the plane's leaving in an hour. Let's get the pet on. It'll be like, we're going to close the doors in five minutes, thenen we'll get the pet on and safe cost for flying a pet as cargo is much pricier Airlines tend to base the price on volume and weight For a domestic trip, an airline might charge around three hundred dollars hundred for a Chihuahua and a thousand dollars for a mastiff International flights can be two to three times more Usually, like if you have a Labrador or an average sized pet, it's a very large box and the airlines will charge a premium for the fact you're sending a live animal This can be easily into thousands of dollars just for the air freight alone Pets and cargo also have to travel in airline approved sky kennels You can find small or medium sized sky kennels at a pet supply store for around one hundred bucks But some pets, like a Bernese mountain dog or a Stt Bernard, require crates that are far more expensive For a great Dane that's needing something that's bigger than the standard sky Kennel, you could easily be looking at one thousand dollars. They have to be custom made. There's not a huge amount of people out there that make them So we will provide for Skycunnel for whatever it is, if it's a cat or a giant dog or two ducks, we'll get it fabricated Acidents with pets on planes are pretty rare But they do happen Between twenty fifteen and twenty twenty, the Department of Transportation reported one hundred and twelve pet deaths and eighty one pet injuries related to airline travel. Many of these incidents involved snub nosed dog breeds like bulldogs, boxers, and pugs who struggle to breathe when it gets too hot The problem became so prevalent that most airlines now refuse to transport them year round Hardly any major airlines around the world take pugs, English bulldogs Really, the only ones left are Turkish airlines, Luftthanza and a couple of others So when you have a move which is, say, London to New York we have to think, all right, well, what's the next best way of doing it? And we would typically Either Fly from on Luftthanzer, London Frink that And then over to the states Or we would pick him up in London, drive him to Fankfurt. and fly them on a single flight from there If you're really opposed to flying your pet over on a commercial flight You do have a few other options For starters, you can charter a private jet On Facebook, there's a group called Chartered Air Travel with Pets. It has forty one thousand members who post questions like How do I get a spoodle from Tunisia to the US And anyone else transporting a cat from Norway to Italy If enough people are going to the same place at the same time, they can band together and split the cost But that can still be prohibitively expensive for the average pet owner. A one way flight from New York to London on a chartered mid sized jet It might cost around sixty thousand dollars And it only holds eight passengers There's also the Queen Mary too cruise ship that travels between New York and Britain For around a thousand dollars per voyage, your dog will have access to fresh baked biscuits. Daily walks and even a fire hydrink to peon. It's like booked out a year or at least in advance. It's a super hot ticket for pets But figuring out how to move a pet from one part of the world to another is just one small part of Mike Gaze's job Every country has different rules around non human immigration And depending on where you're going what kind of creature you're bringing with you Things can get messy That's coming up In most countries, rules about animals are set by the aggriculture Department In America, for instance, the USDA plays the dominant role in setting standards And those standards can vary depending on what kind of animal you're bringing in and where it's coming from For example, you can't legally bring in a hedgehog from New Zealand or any place with foot and mouth disease A global pet relocation Navigating all of these laws has become a more central part of Mike Gaze's job When he first started out in the industry twenty years ago Most moves were between major developed cities But nowadays, it is really, truly anywhere to anywhere The globalization of workforces of companies spreading out all around the world Every year we have more more destinations than we had the year before. In recent years, many countries have tightened quarantine and vaccination requirements for incoming pets And Gazayse has had to spend a lot of time studying pet import and export laws all over the world We have developed a library of chehecklists for pretty much every country in the world And it has exactly what's needed for that country, depending on where they're coming from What? vaccinations are required what format it has to be in, how it all has to be written out So our teams there check everything, go through it all with a fine tove come In some cases, those rules are being worked out for the first time We had a move a couple of years ago from Morocco to Mauritius for I think it was a couple of cats. It looked like there had never in history been movement of pets between Morocco and Mauritius So We sort of had to help facilitate and guide the Moroccan and Mauritian governments to come up with like a trade agreement to send these two pets That is way above the pay grade of us pet shippers Other countryes' laws are notoriously hardcore If you want to take your dog to Australia You'll have to wait up to four months for a permit Once little Buddy is there, he may have to quarantine for thirty days or more Ps and dogs make up around ninety seven percent of the pets that global pet relocation works with Gaze has seen it all Guinea pigs, rabbits, parrots, tortoises No job is too small to take on We arere currently working on a move of seven goldfish from the UK to Boston It willll be a mix of air and water so when you're uppper altitude the pressure doesn't cause the bag to pop and stuff like that Generally they're packed inside polystyne boxes and it's dark. You can't just take them off the plane and open them up into a bright room because it'll shock them So they have to go into a room where the lighting is low, they have to make sure temperature is okay But some jobs are a little too big We had an owner in New York in Manhattan and they had a cat This guy wanted us to pick up his cat at like three in the morning or something like that Lved in a Lice toownhouse in New York and our driver went to the cat went up to the flight stairs. Hey how you doing? gets let in and comes into the guy's living room lounge area and inside is a Bengal tiger The drivers standing there holding a skyknel that would be perfectly good for a cat It's like, I got a minute Why is he called killer We had to politely decline that one When Gazays got the call about moving two ducks from the UK to San Francisco a few years ago He was tempted to pass that up too He knew it would be a tough one since the USDA considers ducks poultry Typically, if you're moving ducks or poultry, you are a big commercial outfit and you're moving ten thousand ducks for whatever reason. So there wasn't really the infrastructure or methodology to move to ducks But he decided to take on the challenge In the end, getting bean and wobbles to the states required months of conversations with the USDA Salmonella tests and a stopover at a quarantine center in New York They flew on British Airways over to JFK And then we had to organize thirty days quarantine for them in and around JFK airport in a special quarantine center They set the ducks up with their own big room. They had a swimming pool As ducks needneed, they had a log. If theyhe had all the creature comforts a pair of cool ducks could ever ask for The thirty days go by and they're good to go. so we get them on one more flight from New York to San Francisco get them off at San Francisco Airport. take them home to to very happy douck owners Bill for that move clocked in at fourteen thousand dollars, around twice the cost of a typical move through a pet relocation company. But for Emelia Barclow Getting bean and wobbles back home safely was worth every penny I was feeling really nervous because I wasn't sure if they'd remember me The second they saw me, they both just began quacking crazy. And it was like nothing ever happened What was the first thing Wobbble said to you? Give me food Economics of everyday Things, I'm Zachary Crockett This episode was produced by me and Sarah Lilly and mixed by Jeremy Johnston. We had help from Daniel Morrz Robson What's the landlord's duck policy Once they see how small they are and that they wear diapers and that they don't make a mess, they're usually okay with it Free Economics radio network, the hidden side of everything