I am looking into purchasing Pancake Tortoises and Start tortoises from within the United states but when I look up the FWS rules and regulations for this, I am seeing that CITES permits and/or other documentation might still be needed. I am finding that CITES appendix 1 animals, even when captive bred within the US, are still stated to need permitting, even when not specifically listed under the ESA. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge on this? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
-David
Could you post a link to these findings?
CITES is an international regulation system. It does not regulate domestic shipping within states. You are perfectly fine shipping shipping state to state
The question was whether interstate transport of Appendix 1 animals might need a permit (“…or other documentation”), not whether CITES itself would regulate such transport. Those are two distinct situations, and whether the answer to each is the same depends on regulations outside the purview of CITES (well, basically all domestic regulation involving CITES is external to it, since CITES is an international treaty rather than a federal law; Lacey is the domestic regulation mechanism).
The situation of Appendix 1 plants seems to be an example of why these two issues shouldn’t be conflated. " Interstate commerce activities with [Appendix 1] plants require, prior to the sale, that the seller obtain a permit for plants coming from cultivated stock and that the buyer obtain a permit for plants taken from the wild. "
1 Like
From this document: https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024-05/factsheet-cites-permits-and-certificates-2024.pdf
3 Likes
Appendix I classification is a CITES classification and therefore the only regulations involving that classification would involve international transit.
If there are any different regulations on the organism in question they would be outside the boundaries of Appendix I and CITES and so there would be no need to ask about either, which the OP clearly did
For decades I was/have legally shipped thousands of Appendix I and II plants across the US and there was no CITES-relevant permitting needed for them. The only time CITES comes in to play is when you are dealing with international import and export
‘No need to ask about’ seems to be unwarranted. In part because as I pointed out all regulations that apply to individual people are “outside the boundaries of Appendix 1 and CITES” (since I personally am not a party to an international treaty; if I get caught smuggling CITES listed species, I’m not prosecuted by CITES).
It is plausible that regulations by whatever agency could take the CITES appendices as lists for their own regulations – that’s one reason I asked for documentation of findings that purportedly entail just this. So while the answer could be (and looks to be) ‘no’, it isn’t the case that there’s no need to ask it.
1 Like