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My friend Omegamom and her family recently moved from Arizona to Alaska. Since they were flying to their new home, the plan was to ship their pet turtles separately. It wasn’t as easy as they thought. My first thought was to just plop the turtles in your carryon bag and be done with it. Last year, I flew to Denver beside a woman who brought her dog in her purse, and the airline never found out. This was after security made me leave my cup of coffee behind. But the risk in this case wasn’t worth missing the plane, or the trauma to Omegadotter. FedEx will ship horses, but not household pets. I guess that would include turtles. The UPS website says they will ship turtles, but Omegamom ran into a clerk who didn’t like the way she packed them. From what I’ve seen, she packed them exactly as the turtle experts recommend. The story had a happy ending, when Air Alaska allowed them to bring the turtles as baggage on their flight.
Turtle Rescue of Long Island recommends DHL for shipping, and has a photo tutorial on turtle packing. Turtle Homes suggests you use Airborne Express, as does the World Chelonian Trust. The Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society has displaced and unwanted turtles for adoption, and they will ship them to you (via DHL), but only between April and October, and only if the turtle weighs less than 15 pounds. All the turtle sites I checked advise against shipping turtles in winter. Then I found out that DHL bought Airborne Express in 2003. So if you need to ship turtles, that would be the carrier to contact.
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I had a friend who wasn’t allowed to travel with turtles because of the salmonella threat. Sounds like a good idea to me…
posted by CBD on 8-24-2007 at 12:34 pm
That’s interesting. I have seen people bring their dogs and cats onto the plane. I saw a lady bought a seat for her tiny dog. You would think it would be easy to bring on turtles. At least they don’t make noise like dogs.
posted by G on 8-24-2007 at 1:28 pm
FedEx does ship turtles all the time. You may need to be a reseller of them though. I see them come through the FedEx system all the time, two or three times a week.
posted by Jim on 8-24-2007 at 4:32 pm
Though I have never tried to send turtles anywhere, I did bring home 50+ baby guppies home on an airplane (in my check luggage… no liquids on board). I just put them into a Nalgene bottle and put that in a plastic bag, in case of leaks. They made it home and back to the dorm, sometimes more than once.
I also tried to send a guppy to a friend in Vermont in January through the US post office. It died.
posted by amy on 8-24-2007 at 8:08 pm
Turtles are easy movers. they don’t meow or squawk on the drive to the new place (like my cat and birds did). i haven’t flown with my turtle yet, but he’s moved with me twice. the first time he travelled in a coffee mug. the second time, he was in a large bucket (he’d outgrown the coffee mug)
posted by the creature on 1-5-2009 at 11:46 am