Originally Posted by
GUWonder
Does this also apply to historical animal trophies being transported for museum or scientific use?
These kind of moves strike me more as PR moves to try to get free press and/or PR moves with potential cost-cutting benefits for the airlines.
Dunno. But as one who had specific permits (USDA APHIS etc.) to import certain live and dead specimens of various kinds, I suspect it might be different with US - let scientific permits. Or not, as dealing with airline employees was occasionally challenging in spite of US Federal permits.
Undoubtedly PR given DL and UA made similar announcements. But there is risk avoidance as well, given transporting parts of CITES I animals can get problematic, and buffalo (wildebeest and others to, but I never gnu a hunter who wanted a wildebeest trophy
) is a problem. (In Africa, there are barrier fences, sometimes massively huge ones, to impede movement by various ungulates due to the several diseases they carry that can threaten cattle.)
AA is merely, er, trying to dodge some potential bullets.