Lacey Act

The Office of Management and Budget has approved a Fish and Wildlife Service final rule to list one or more of the nine species of large constrictor snakes as injurious wildlife under the Lacey Act. An injurious wildlife listing would prohibit the importation into, or transportation between, States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any U.S. territory or possession by any means, except by permit for zoological, educational, medical, or scientific purposes. (OMB review completed on 01/17/12)

The Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a final rule, effective March 23, 2012, that will ban the importation and interstate transportation of four nonnative constrictor snakes that threaten the Everglades and other sensitive ecosystems across the U.S. The FWS final rule lists the Burmese python, the yellow anaconda, and the northern and southern African pythons as injurious wildlife under the Lacey Act in order to restrict their spread in the wild in the U.S. Effective March 23, 2012, interstate transport and importation of live individuals, gametes, viable eggs, or hybrids of the Burmese python, northern and southern African pythons, and yellow anaconda into the U.S. will be prohibited.

The Justice Department has announced that Steve Kinder and his wife, Cornelia Joyce Kinder, and their two caviar companies, Kinder Caviar Inc. and Black Star Caviar Company, pleaded guilty to trafficking in and falsely labeling illegally harvested paddlefish. The two companies were in the business of exporting paddlefish eggs as caviar to customers in foreign countries.

Officials at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service now state that the inter-agency report to Congress on the Lacey Act declaration is expected to be completed and sent to the Office of Management and Budget by the end of January 2012. At OMB, the report will be subject to a formal agency comment process, which sources hope will occur in a streamlined manner as these agencies were involved in writing the report. Officials also state that the final rule to define two categories of products that are exempt from the Lacey Act Declaration -- common cultivar and common food crop -- is now very close to completion.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced three people have been sentenced for violations of the Lacey Act for illegally selling and transporting walrus ivory and polar bear hides between July 2010 and April 2011. The defendants purchased the parts in Alaska and illegally sold and transported them to other states and countries. One defendant was sentenced to 108 months imprisonment, another to 42 months imprisonment, and the last defendant to three years of probation from hunting and other business related to wildlife.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has posted a "green" paper as well as remarks by Deputy USTR Marantis on the U.S.' proposal for a conservation framework in the environment chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Marantis states that the framework would require TPP parties to act to inhibit illegal trade in wildlife and wild plant products, whether or not the product originated in another TPP country.

Officials at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service state that the interagency report to Congress on the Lacey Act declaration is still not ready to be submitted to Congress, and is not expected by year’s end. However, officials state that the final rule to define two categories of products that are exempt from the Lacey Act Declaration -- common cultivar and common food crop -- is nearing completion.

The Justice Department states that a Miami Beach man, Enrique Gomez De Molina, who used various wildlife parts in taxidermy pieces that were offered for sale on the Internet, through galleries, and shows, has been charged in a criminal Information for knowingly transporting, possessing, and selling wildlife with a value greater than $350 in violation of the Lacey Act. If convicted, the defendant faces a possible maximum term of imprisonment of up to five years, criminal fines of up to $250,000, and a period of supervised release of up to three years. In addition, all specimens of wildlife trafficked in violation of the Lacey Act are subject to forfeiture.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida has announced that Elias Garcia and Maria Plancarte have pled guilty to charges of conspiring to violate the federal Lacey Act by smuggling jaguar skins from Mexico and trafficking in them in the U.S. The jaguar is listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Under cover of a plant seed company Garcia and Plancarte jointly operated, they sold two jaguar pelts to undercover Fish and Wildlife Service agents and planned a future sale of up to 10 jaguar pelts to be smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. Their sentencing is scheduled for March 2012, where each defendant faces a five year prison term, a criminal fine of up to $250,000, and a period of up to three years of supervised release.

The Justice Department has announced that GEM Manufacturing LLC of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a manufacturer of high-end jewelry, art, and sculpture items, was sentenced to pay a criminal fine of $1.8 million for knowingly trading in falsely-labeled, protected black coral that was shipped into the U.S. in violation of the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act. When combined with another fine for community service work and forfeiture of items worth $2.17 million, the aggregate financial penalty of $4.47 million makes this the largest for the illegal trade in coral, the largest non-seafood wildlife trafficking financial penalty and the fourth largest for any U.S. case involving the illegal trade of wildlife.