snider6464
New member
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2021
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 18
- Location
- Colorado USA
- Media
- 3
- Member of
- RMEF, SCI, Colorado mule deer association,
- Hunted
- USA, New Zeland, Mexico, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa,
Hello all,
I went on a hunt in South Africa in 2021 with Marius Goosen of KMG Safaris. Did my research on him and everything involved with making my first trip to Africa a great success. However I did not take the advice of this hunting forum to use Trophy Shippers as the importer. I used Splitting image and just assumed they would have me covered to get the trophies to the final destination and use their suggested exporters and importers. They gave it to Badger Cargo, which was not terrible to deal with. But once Gallagher transport got involved it got totally off rail.
I live in Colorado and with Denver removing their USDA inspections of some sort Gallagher said they could get a variance to get it cleared there and we shipped the crate to Denver on Feb 10th. The communication with Gallagher has been a total nightmear. Not responding to emails, short or hanging up on the phone, everything you can imagine. I finally found out last week that the shipment had to be moved somewhere else to get cleared and is back in Denver. I am now waiting on the word to go pick it up.
Since it has been held up for over 50 days, am I totally screwed? I feel they are going to charge me more than my entire hunt cost and taxidermy? I feel like I want to contact splitting image and ask how the hell I got put with this corrupt/failure of a importer, but I also understand I should have used someone like Trophy Shipper (which I talked with briefly at SCI in Nashville and they seem great).
I have hunted in many far off lands (new Zealand, Kyrg, Mexico, etc) but never had to deal with anything remotely as a cluster as this.
My question is what should I do now or is there anything to do?
I went on a hunt in South Africa in 2021 with Marius Goosen of KMG Safaris. Did my research on him and everything involved with making my first trip to Africa a great success. However I did not take the advice of this hunting forum to use Trophy Shippers as the importer. I used Splitting image and just assumed they would have me covered to get the trophies to the final destination and use their suggested exporters and importers. They gave it to Badger Cargo, which was not terrible to deal with. But once Gallagher transport got involved it got totally off rail.
I live in Colorado and with Denver removing their USDA inspections of some sort Gallagher said they could get a variance to get it cleared there and we shipped the crate to Denver on Feb 10th. The communication with Gallagher has been a total nightmear. Not responding to emails, short or hanging up on the phone, everything you can imagine. I finally found out last week that the shipment had to be moved somewhere else to get cleared and is back in Denver. I am now waiting on the word to go pick it up.
Since it has been held up for over 50 days, am I totally screwed? I feel they are going to charge me more than my entire hunt cost and taxidermy? I feel like I want to contact splitting image and ask how the hell I got put with this corrupt/failure of a importer, but I also understand I should have used someone like Trophy Shipper (which I talked with briefly at SCI in Nashville and they seem great).
I have hunted in many far off lands (new Zealand, Kyrg, Mexico, etc) but never had to deal with anything remotely as a cluster as this.
My question is what should I do now or is there anything to do?