- Be like this woman and always clear your bizarre hobby materials at the customs.
It’s always nice to bring home souvenirs as mementos of your travels to distant lands. That said, you should not try to take just any kind of foreign crap with you when you leave.
Especially if that’s crap in the literal sense.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agents at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport got a stinky surprise in late September. An Iowa woman returning from Kenya declared she was bringing with her a seemingly innocuous package.
Inside, however, were multiple nuggets of giraffe s***.
Apparently, the woman makes necklaces out of moose droppings as a hobby — for some reason. When she found giraffe poop during her trip, she figured it’d make for a nice unique crap necklace.
We suppose jewelry made out of moose nuggets isn’t unique enough for some.
Sadly for her, the customs official thwarted her plans. Bringing alien poop into the country is, after all, a biohazard — whether it was produced by an animal or a human.
The customs agents have destroyed the giraffe poop using appropriate measures. The woman didn’t receive any sanctions, as she appeared genuinely unaware of the potential risks and readily surrendered her filthy souvenir upon request.
‘We Were a Little Shocked’
The bizarre incident took place on September 29, according to the U.S. CPB. A plane had just unloaded its passengers who were now moving through the customs.
Among them was the unidentified woman from Iowa. She was on the plane to get home from an African safari trip in Kenya.
When the customs agents asked her if she had anything to declare, she said yes. There’s nothing weird there — people often bring with them souvenirs that require a customs inspection.
“Normally, we are inspecting a lot of fruits and vegetables and meats and plants that people are bringing back,” Lauren Lewis, chief of agriculture for U.S. CPB at the Minneapolis airport, told MPR News.
Yet, that’s not what this woman had brought with her. From her bags, she produced a box containing the aforementioned giraffe crap.
There was also some kind of a shell, for good measure. Lewis wanted to be clear that this was not a usual customs declaration.
“We don’t normally get fecal material in. That’s not something that we see on a daily basis,” she said.
“We were really a little shocked.”
When asked why she was trying to bring dried poop nuggets into the country, the woman responded that she intended to make jewelry out of it.
“Apparently, when she is at home, she makes jewelry out of moose droppings. So, when she saw giraffe droppings while on safari, she thought that would be a unique addition to her craftwork, I guess,” explained Lewis.
Dangerous Crap
The customs agents quickly explained to the woman that they could not allow her to keep her souvenir. After all, bringing in foreign animal droppings can be very dangerous.
“There is a real danger with bringing fecal matter into the U.S.,” said LaFonda D. Sutton-Burke, U.S. CBP director of field operations at the Chicago Field Office.
“If this person had entered the U.S. and had not declared these items, there is a high possibility a person could have contracted a disease from this jewelry and developed serious health issues.”
Not only that, but the giraffe poop could’ve posed an even bigger threat to American animals. Foreign beasts may carry diseases and pathogens that can wreak havoc on our domestic animals.
For example, Kenya — where the woman was coming from — is currently struggling with outbreaks of African and classical swine fever, Newcastle disease, foot-and-mouth disease, and swine vesicular disease.
You really don’t want these plagues spreading across American farms.
Owning Up to Her Mistake
Now, there is one way the woman could’ve kept her poop. Importing animal feces is legal, assuming the person doing so has preapplied for an import permit and submits to an appropriate inspection upon entry.
The woman, however, didn’t have such a permit. Scratch that, she didn’t even know it existed or she wasn’t just able to bring in feces willy-nilly.
As such, her giraffe crap was confiscated. The U.S. CPB destroyed the droppings using steam sterilization.
It’s a good thing, too, that the woman declared her strange souvenir. Had she thrown a Karen fit or — even worse — tried to smuggle the poop past customs, she could’ve been looking at an up to $1,000 fine.
However, she had never intended to cause any harm. According to Lewis, the woman was remorseful and apologized profusely for her actions.
“She did not intend to potentially affect U.S. agriculture in any way. This was just something that she did as a hobby,” said Lewis.
“She just saw something that would be an interesting addition to her hobby. Unfortunately, it’s those innocuous importations that sometimes can have the biggest effect.”
In the end, there was no harm done, except the woman now can’t make her exotic giraffe crap necklace.
Honestly, we do feel kind of bad for her. You have to commend her for owning up to her mistake — had she smuggled the droppings in, this story could’ve had a much s***tier ending.