Here´s a story to tell.

Once upon a time there was a lady on her way back to Germany from a tropical island holiday who, just like that, packed 5 eggs as a souvenir into her suitcase. Most likely this tourist did not know what rare and valuable turtle species she had taken with her.

Having arrived in Germany, the 5 eggs were confiscated by the customs office and brought to the Frankfurt Zoo, reason being that these eggs were 5 unhatched exemplars of the very rare and endangered hawksbill turtle.From there on the Frankfurt Zoo took them into their care and raised them to quite strong and sturdy teenage (not mutant nor ninja) turtles. One should mention that this species of turtle grows up to 90cm in length and stems a weight of up to 75kg. Now that´s quite something!

Since the hawksbill is one of the most fervently protected amongst the many endangered species, the federal agency for nature conservation decided to have the reptile transport service of GK Airfreight send the turtles as cargo back to their home in the Seychelles.

The transport boxes were constructed at the Frankfurt Zoo according to the required specifications of the IATA and then GK Airfreight Pet Airlines took care of the ticketing and further organization needed in the exportation of such protected animals.

The CITES export license required when transporting endangered reptiles needed to be obtained from the federal agency for nature conservation, a maybe tedious bureaucratic drudgery but none the less important in the protection of endangered animals, and then the next morning the final customs clearance was seen to. Now nothing could stand in the way for this rather extraordinary reptile transport, and that the 5 turtles would be sure to arrive safely in the Seychelles.

Read on this topic, the contribution of:

A WAZA X-Mas Story