Monkey-skull ashtrays no longer create shock

Airport inspectors in Alaska have seen it all

By Mary Pemberton ~ The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Wildlife inspectors at Alaska's largest airport have seen it all, from the traveler who tried to hide a monkey under her big hat to the woman who had a bear gall bladder stuffed in her bra.

"I've almost become numb," said Chris Andrews, one of Alaska's three U.S. Fish and Wildlife inspection officers assigned to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. "When I see a monkey-skull ashtray I say, 'Oh, another monkey-skull ashtray."'

The Anchorage airport, a hub for flights to Russia and the Far East, is the biggest cargo airport in the United States and ranks sixth nationwide for wildlife shipments, processing 6,648 of them in the last fiscal year.

Andrews and his two colleagues typically check about 65 shipments each day and make about one seizure -- probably a small fraction of the illegal wildlife that is getting through. Many of the contraband items are folk remedies and other exotica from Asia.

The items seized are illegal outright or require permits to possess. Andrews said most travelers do not realize they are breaking the law, but plenty of other violators know it.

Penalties range from confiscation of the illegal item to a $100,000 fine and a year in jail.

Some of the airport contraband is on display in a glass case outside Andrews' office. Among the curiosities: a woman's leopard coat from Taiwan, a crocodile-head purse from Southeast Asia and a guitar from Mexico made from the shell of a sea turtle.

Andrews pulls a cardboard box from under his desk and holds up two bottles filled with a pale yellow liquid. One has a cobra coiled in the bottom, from Vietnam. The other has two decomposing iguanas and is from China. The "wine" is a popular novelty item with tourists.

"The tequila worm I can handle, but this is awful," customs officer Sue Gadomski said as she shrank from the bottles on Andrews' desk. Gadomski works closely with Andrews and his colleagues.