Quote:
Originally Posted by kscarrol
Sorry dazzabb but Maestro is correct. At least as far as U.S. alligator is concerned. Is this alligator strap imported from elsewhere?
I can promise you that here in Louisiana (and Florida for that matter), alligators are legally hunted AND farm raised for meats and skins. The hunts are limited to preserve wild populations but farm raised animals are not. I can walk into any number of stores here in New Orleans and legally buy any number of items made with alligator skins.
Perhaps there is some export issue... but it is not a hunting issue here in the states.
EDIT: OK, from the US Wildlife & Fisheries web site...
You must obtain a permit if: (a) the export or re-export is commercial; (b) your personal crocodilian (alligator, caiman, crocodile, or gavial) items are more than four in quantity; (c) for personal items, the foreign country requires you to have a U.S. CITES document; or (d) the personal item is being mailed or shipped separately to a foreign country. Submit either an export application form or a re-export application form.
So it does appear that the OP is correct, some CITES permit is needed to export...
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As soon as I read the above the issue was not that is was illegal, but he had to have documentation to back up that the skin complies with the requirements.
I suspect the Ebay seller was aware of the export requirements thus would not ship out side the US since no shipper in the US cares about what is in the package. This must be the reason the person shipped it to someone in FL in hopes to turned it around and ship it to him in Thailand.
The question I have is how did the FL company know what they were shipping. Did they open it up and how do that know it was real alligator since there is so much fake stuff out there.
To the Op, not sure what you can do with the ebay seller, if you used a credit card to buy the watch you can always file a claim with your CC company. Beyond this I am not sure what else you can do, you are not a US citizen so it going to be hard to file a claim in the US against the person. Hell our police and agency do not even help people when they get scam from people outside the US, they just tell us we should know better.
BTW, here is the permit you could have completed to ship the watch out
http://www.fws.gov/forms/3-200-26.pdf
But if you read it is only for the actually skins, it does not say about a final product so there may have been some confusion on the part of the shipping company.