Federal customs agents pooh-poohed the plans of an Iowa woman who wanted to make jewelry from giraffe feces she picked up on a trip to Kenya and brought back to the U.S. in her luggage.

The woman declared the small box of feces when she was selected to have her belongings inspected upon arriving at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport on Sept. 29, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The woman, who was not identified, told officials she planned to use the waste to make a necklace, as she had done in the past with moose poop.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Giraffe poop can be brought back to the U.S. with the proper permits and inspections, according to Minnesota Public Radio. The station reported that the woman won’t face sanctions because she declared the feces and gave it to Customs.

    I would not have guessed that there is already a process. Therefore, this is not the first time someone has brought Giraffe waste into the country. Interesting.

    • Specific_Skunk@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t be surprised if the initial purveyor of poo was a researcher, because they are always hauling weird shit around. I was once asked why I was carrying around 40 toothbrushes and when I responded with “for fish stuff”, the looks only turned more confused. I can only imagine being a well-traveled researcher trying to return through customs with my latest batch of study materials.

        • Specific_Skunk@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Some fish have little “hairs” on their body that are very similar to the “hairs” humans have in their ears to detect sound. As part of a trial to regrow damaged “hairs” in people with noise-induced hearing loss (soldiers, factory workers, etc), we had to uh, induce some damage so there was a test subject for the drugs. Turns out, tooth brush heads work really well for transmitting high-frequency waves through small volumes of water. Also turns out that I was not cut out for trials requiring living things. It was rough on the psyche.

      • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I once heard of someone being stopped for carrying a container labeled “bee genitalia”.

  • SeedyOne@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    This isn’t quite as crazy as it sounds. Mythbusters did an episode years ago to prove that you.can actually “polish a turd”, testing with various species of poop. If memory serves, Lion was the shiniest of the bunch. I don’t recall if giraffe was on there but maybe she’s onto something…

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI