Re: [Killietalk] Fish on the airlines ... and WCW

[Alberto Restrepo Ubach <restrepo at sandiego_edu>]

Since this thread has focused on the experiences of bringing fish 
back from Portland, I'll add mine.  I picked up several pairs of fish 
at WCW this past weekend --some of which I consider valuable (or at 
least, expensive).  Nowadays, I'm always a bit anxious about the 
arbitrariness of both airline regulations and airport security, so I 
chose to do what I did last year:  Mail the fish to myself here in 
San Diego.  On Sunday night I took over Kit's (Stowell) laundry room 
in Vancouver, WA, and, using breather bags, re-bagged all the fish 
that John Pitcairn and I had bought.  I've always been partial to 
regular polyethylene bags (individually packed fish, double bagged as 
pairs), but someone at WCW suggested that out of Portland it would be 
best if my boxes didn't give any indication of having water in them, 
so I used  breather bags inside a couple of unmarked styro boxes with 
crumpled newspaper as cushioning.   Anyway, on Monday morning I went 
to the US Post Office at the Portland Airport and mailed the boxes. 
Monday night we flew back to San Diego.  The two boxes arrived at my 
place in San Diego on Wednesday morning, almost exactly forty eight 
hours after I sent them.  There were 38 killifishes (sixteen pairs 
and two trios) bagged individually. All but one made it safely. 
Unfortunately, the one that I lost really bummed me out --a male A. 
hanneloreae that Steffen Hellner brought from Germany.  The fish 
looked already a bit distressed while in the bag at the auction, so I 
am not exactly sure that the trip from Portland to San Diego is what 
definitely did it in, but we'll never know.  Aside from that casualty 
(big as it may be), the rest of the killies made it okay.  A half 
dozen checkerboard cichlids (Dicrossus filamentosus) that I bought at 
one of those awesome Portland LFS did not fare that well --I lost 
most of them.  I suspect that dwarf cichlids, which require warmer 
temperatures don't ship very well.  That was also a bit of a bummer.

I still get nervous every time I ship fish, and loosing the A. 
hanneloreae was very disappointing; but overall and given the amount 
of fish I sent myself, things went relatively well.  Maybe it would 
have been better to bring them with me on the plane.  It's easy to 
second guess one's decisions when even the smallest thing goes wrong. 
I suppose that instead of dwelling on it, it is time to go and try to 
breed some of those "New and Rare" species so that they aren't so new 
or so rare for very long.

By the way, I join the chorus of people congratulating --and 
thanking-- those who work long hours to put on the event --Brian, 
Jeremy, Thuan, Barry et al.  WCW was fun and ran like a well-oiled 
machine.

Alberto
San Diego
AKA 08000
SDKG/SCKC





  I'll At 6:40 AM -0700 4/6/05, Allan Semeit wrote:
> Just a quick addition to Monte's note.  I flew on Southwest Airlines 
> to and from West Coast Weekend.  My preference is to carry on my 
> fish rather than checking them as baggage.  I use a collapsible 
> cooler.  Coming home, I was so overloaded that I had to use my small 
> suitcase for fish also. Fortunately, I had brought a collapsible gym 
> bag that I used to pack my clothes and this was checked into 
> baggage.  With the collapsible cooler and small suitcase as carry-on 
> luggage, there was absolutely no problem in clearing security in 
> Phoenix or Portland, or in boarding the plane.
>
> Allan from Arizona
>
>
> To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
> Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/


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