Word: exportability
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...poisonous snakes and migratory birds. From the tiny African nation of Burundi, which has a known elephant population of one, hundreds of tons of ivory are shipped each year. The tusks, say conservationists, have probably been smuggled in from Tanzania, Rwanda or Zaïre, where virtually all ivory export is forbidden...
...rare bird taped to a woman's thigh. In Elaine, Wash., U.S. officers arrested two travelers who had crossed the Canadian border with four gyrfalcons concealed in the wheel well of their car trunk. To make matters even more complex, drug smugglers have entered the wildlife export game. Officials are investigating one report that a cargo of 80 parrots sent from Bolivia to The Netherlands included up to two dozen dead birds that were stuffed with cocaine. One group of South American narcotics dealers is believed to have coated outgoing crocodile skins with pure cocaine. The smugglers assured port...
Conservationists say that the laws are adequate but enforcement is poor. The U.S.'s 6,400 Customs agents, who try to prevent drug trafficking, currency violations and the export of high technology to the Soviet Union, have assigned low priority to the wildlife trade. Jokes a former Justice Department attorney: "They don't do much unless a tire with a grand eclectus in it falls in their laps." Regulation is often left to the Fish and Wildlife Service, which has 35 inspectors. This is an insufficient number even for spot checks on wildlife imports, which last year included...
...make the job more manageable, the FWS has designated nine U.S. cities as official entry ports for wildlife. Freebooting traders, however, simply bypass them. For example, raw coral, used for jewelry and fish-tank décor, is barred from export by the Philippines. Yet in 1983, 540,000 lbs. of coral entered...
...biggest conflict in the new frontier has occurred in Bolivia's sparsely settled Beni region, where the number one export is cocaine. The millions of dollars the fad drug of the 80's has brought to the impoverished nation gives the growers an important role in the national economy. So important, Kandell reports, that the last government which cooperated with Drug Enforcement Administration officials from the United States was quickly removed from office by the military...