According to The Hill’s RegWatch. USPS is seeking to relax animal mailing limits:
The U.S. Postal Service wants customers to be able to mail more live animals. …… the mail service is pushing to allow live birds up to 25 pounds to be sent within the country. The agency also wants to extend required special handling service for more live animal shipments and limit the available mail classes that can be used to ship live animals. The Postal Service’s existing restrictions allow for shipments of a handful of live fowl and game birds, including geese, turkeys and chickens, as well as bees, scorpions and some small cold-blooded animals including frogs, snails, goldfish and insects…
Summary of USPS’ Proposed rule From the Federal Register:
SUMMARY: The Postal Service is proposing to revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM[supreg]) 503.14 and 601.9.3 to require special handling service for shipments containing certain types of live animals, to limit the mail classes available for use when shipping certain types of live animals, and to expand the mailability of live animals domestically to include any adult bird weighing no more than 25 pounds.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Postal Service currently requires special handling service for designated shipments of live animals needing additional care during transport and handling to its destination as follows: Domestic shipments containing honeybees or baby poultry are currently required to include special handling service, unless First-Class Mail[supreg], First-Class Package Service\TM\, or Priority Mail[supreg] is used. Shipments containing live animals must also be marked on the address side with a description of the contents, even if special handling service is not purchased. These markings provide notice to Postal Service employees that specific care, different from the handling of ordinary mailpieces, is required.
Circumstances requiring the Postal Service to handle shipments containing live animals differently also include:
a. Protection of Postal Service employees and the public against harm from diseased animals.
b. Protection of the mail and the environment against damage to the shipping container or the live animal and offensive odors or noise.
c. Protection of animals against death, taking into account the expected time and temperature in transit (weather conditions), and packaging sufficient to resist impact, heat and cold, and to prevent suffocation.
The Postal Service consistently accepts, transports, and delivers live animals with additional care in handling, regardless of the mail class or the extra service being purchased. This additional care ensures safe and effective processing for mail containing live animals through the mailstream to its destination. Consequently, the Postal Service incurs additional expense to isolate and protect live shipments even when sent by air transportation, such as with Express Mail[supreg] or Priority Mail[supreg].
If this proposal is adopted the Postal Service will require special handling service for all parcels containing bulk shipments of bees (e.g. a queen bee packaged with an attending swarm), day-old poultry and adult birds, regardless of the class of mail used.
Additionally, the Postal Service currently affixes a unique tracking barcode on all parcels presented at retail, and recommends that all mailers not presenting shipments at retail include an Intelligent Mail[supreg] package barcode (IMpb) on their mailpieces, when not already required to do so as a condition of the mail class and price category or postage payment method used. If this proposal is adopted, the Postal Service will require mailers purchasing special handing to either present their mailpieces at retail, or to include an IMpb, embedded with the appropriate service type code applicable to special handling and the mail class used, on their mailpieces. The Postal Service also proposes that shipments of live animals that include special handling must be accepted at either a USPS retail unit, Business Mail Entry Unit (BMEU) or a Detached Mail Unit (DMU). The Postal Service anticipates that the combination of IMpb tracking and special handling service will provide customers with the service they expect as their parcels containing live animals are transported to their respective destinations.
To assure prompt or expedited delivery and to minimize the chances of animals dying in transit, the Postal Service is also proposing to require shipments containing amphibians and reptiles to be limited to the following products: Express Mail, Priority Mail (excluding Critical Mail[supreg]), First-Class Mail (parcels only) or First-Class Package Service. If this proposal is adopted, shipments of live amphibians and reptiles would no longer be permitted for use with any Package Services, Standard Post\TM\, or Parcel Select[supreg] products.
Currently, certain disease-free adult birds can be accepted for domestic shipment when mailed in compliance with applicable regulations. Mailability is currently restricted to adult chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, doves, pigeons, pheasants, partridges, quail ducks, geese, and swans. The Postal Service is proposing to expand its mailing standards to allow for the shipment of any disease-free live bird, weighing no more than 25 pounds, which can be legally transported. If this proposal is adopted, mailers must be compliant with all applicable governmental laws and regulations, including the Lacey Act, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and regulations of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and any state, municipal or local ordinances. Mailings must also be compliant with the guidelines provided in USPS Publication 14, Prohibitions and Restrictions on Mailing Animals, Plants, and Related Matter, Chapter 5.
Although we are exempt from the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553 (b), (c)) regarding proposed rulemaking by 39 U.S.C. 410(a), we invite public comments on the following proposed revisions to Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), incorporated by reference in the Code of Federal Regulations. See 39 CFR 111.1.
Read more: New Mailing Standards for Live Animals and Special Handling
I strongly urge our postal service to reconsider adopting this regulation. Not only does this put animals at risk, it is also inhumane.
With all do respect, I can’t even receive a normal parcel without the box being damaged in some way.. Also, you would need to insure that they are kept in a temperature controlled environment. If this regulation is embraced, MANY animals can lose their lives needlessly..
I can see it now.. People receiving parcels of animals that were left at their door (outside in the cold) dead! In order for exotic birds to be safely shipped, temperatures must be at least 50 degrees (you also have to consider high temperatures).. I have been breeding birds for over twenty years. And I know of a few irresponsible breeders in this country that illegally ship through your service. By adopting this regulation, you are giving them the opportunity to exploit and abuse animals..
We have had a very difficult time with chicks and even older birds arriving dead with temperatures inside the boxes reaching lower than 50 degrees at times. If the birds are kept in warm environments rather than out on the dock overnight awaiting transport as current USPS protocols dictate, additional protocols would not need to be written.
One can only hope that higher charges for live animals transport will lead to better and more consistent care of these shipments.
My local post office has been very good and careful with my birds, calling me the second they come in, even at odd hours. On several occasions, the postmaster or another carrier have left what they were doing to personally bring my chicks out to the farm. Shipping peeps is neither cruel nor inhumane, if done properly. Chicks are designed by nature to stay up under their mothers with no food or water for days, while the Mom waits for the rest of the eggs to hatch. That is the function of the yolk, which is absorbed just before the peep hatches. Since hatcheries only ship during moderate weather, your chicks,if handled properly, have an excellent chance of arriving intact. Shipping birds is an excellent way to promote genetic diversity, allow rare birds to be conserved, and allows people to receive guaranteed healthy breeding stock. I’m not excited about paying more, but I will to continue to get the excellent service I have always gotten.
I would also be happy to pay extra for lives if there were more current tracking on the package. The current system is very flawed and when birds are delayed they cannot be found. Lives packages need to be scanned at every stop!!
The post office has accepted the shipment of live animals since it first opened its doors in the United States. It has only been in the last few years that USPS fails in it’s policies to protect those little lives. From postmistresses that set the animals outside in the heat because she doesn’t like to hear the peeping to the guy on the loading dock that just tosses them aside in the freezing weather because he cannot be bothered to take them inside. The USPS has problems that a raise or change in the name cannot cure. Shame shame shame on the USPS. Worst part is they investigate from a phone.
ALL this is well and good BUT the USPS needs to hire people who not only can read the words SPECIAL HANDLING & LIVE ANIMALS but be able to COMPREHEND what those words mean!!!
So essentially they want to charge more to do what they are supposed to be doing already.
I have heard of boxes of chicks arriving to their destination dead. Heck I have had chicks arrive to me dead because of them not following protocol. I was talking to a hatchery customer service agent and he had a customers shipment arrive dead. When the customer described the box to the hatchery it had a FOOT PRINT on it! They say guaranteed next day but it can take up to 3 days (or more if they loose the package).
Instead of adding charges they just need to do their jobs right and get the birds there on time and stop losing them!!
I will happily pay extra for extra care, and look forward to utilizing this service! Great service to farmers across the country.
I’m not understanding why “special handling” fees are necessary when we are already required to pay express mail fees for “overnight” delivery but USPS still has up to 3 days to deliver them. It’s double dipping. What extra service can be expected from this “special handling” fee?
It should be illegal to mail live animals. It is inhumane, and many die in the process.