Google has now declared that Les and I are the official experts on the subjec t of importing birds into Mexico! And Google is never wrong. We really want to find a way to bring our favorite Cockatiel, Gilbert, with us.

The Great Gilbert, ruler of all he sees

With many emails, phone calls (I’m waiting  to see my bill this month), and faxes, I finally received this authoritative letter from someone at Senasica – The Department of the Mexican government that handles such things as importing animals.

Here goes, all you need to know:

According to laws and regulations in animal health subject, for import purposes in Mexico only dogs and cats are considered as pet.

If you bring another species as a pet like reptile, songbird, ornament bird, ferret, turtle, rabbits, etc. You have to comply with special requirements, established in the Animal Health Requirements Sheet.

In your case, according with the special requirements, established in the Animal Health Requirements Sheet (http://148.245.191.4/zooweb/Funcion.aspx), If you want to trade songbird. you have to submit the following documents:

To find the requirements you have to look for the following way in the web page (Especie-avícola; Función zootécnica-canoras y de ornato (mascotas); País de origen- Estados Unidos de América; País de procedencia- Estados Unidos de América)

ü First, you have to ask for the original Requirements Sheet, this Requirements Sheet has to contain your name and the address where you will be in Mexico; to get this Sheet, you have to contact with Importation Department in General Office Animal Health. In this Department, you will receive the instructions to get it.

E-mail address and Phone numbers to contact Importation Department are the following:
marcos.molina@senasica.gob.mx and rocio.campuzano@senasica.gob.mx

(55) 59051071; (55) 59051072 and (55) 59051077

ü Certificated health, which must be issued by a Veterinarian belonging to Agricultural Ministry of the origin country. This certificated has to indicate:

1) Songbird was in quarantine in official control for minimum 30 days, and it is healthy and free from infectious diseases and ecto-parasites.

2) In origin region weren’t cases of the following diseases (avian mycoplasmosis, Infectious Bursal Disease (Gumboro), marek, psittacosis, avian encephalomyelitis) for minimum 60 days before the trade.

3) Songbird must come from poultry farm, under monitoring system (in 35 songbirds),this monitoring must start by 18 weeks after birds had born, it must employ viral isolation and identifications of velogenic strains through brain pathogenicity rate (in 1 day chicks), those identifications were applied every  3 or 4 months with negative results. At least, must have been 10 samples from trachea, lung or brain spleen, and the rest (25) could have been cotton swabs from trachea or cloacae; subsequent samplings could have been 35 cotton swabs from trachea or cloacae or songbird has to come from a country free of velogenic strain Newcastle (NOM-013-ZOO-1994).

4) Songbird must come from a Country, state, region, poultry farm or incubator plant; that is free of salmonella (Salmonella pullorum y S. gallinarum) (NOM-005-ZOO-1993)

5) Songbird come from a poultry farm where 59 chicks were analyzed to serologic sampling, for maximum 21 days before the trade, by mean of ELISA test or agar gel immunodiffusion test (AGID) with negative results to Avian Influenza from official lab recognized by Agricultural Ministry from origin country and during these period songbirds were in quarantine in origin region, if the trade were lower than 59 birds, all birds have to be analyzed (NOM-044-ZOO-1995).

6) Bird had to be tested individually in a period for minimum 30 days before trade by mean of serologic samplings or cotton swabs from cloacae with negative results on avian influenza through agar gel immunodiffusion test or viral isolation in a lab recognized by Agricultural Ministry from origin country and during these period songbirds were in quarantine in origin region.

7) This bird has to be in free trading in USA.

Containers and vehicles where birds are transported must have been washing and disinfected before the trade.

9) Bird moving has to be direct from poultry farm to entry inspection entry in Mexico.

10) Containers and vehicles where birds are transported has to have hoops until its arrive to Mexico.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS

11) When the birds arrives to Mexico, they will be transported in vehicles or containers with hoops, and  they will be in quarantine for 30 days in facilities recognized by SAGARPA in the destination State, under veterinarian supervision recognized by SAGARPA Delegation. Hoops has to be removed by official staff from SAGARPA; in case of bird would get sick or die, it will be analyzed to determine causes. The expenses derived from the test are in charge of the owner.

12) Feed or material used as bed aren’t allowed.

13) Documents and bird have to fit with established regulations in section 24, 32 and 89, articule I. II. III and IV of Animal Healthy Federal Act.

Finally, when you fit all the requirements, you have to pay for Importation Certificated, it costs $1,620.00 MXN

REGARDS

If you need further information, please contact with the attention module from the General Office Animal Health located in:

Calle San Lorenzo No. 1151, Planta Baja
Col. Santa Cruz Atoyac, Del. Benito Juárez
CP. 03310, México, DF.
From Monday to Friday on 09:00 – 13:00 hrs.

Phone number:
(55) 59051071; (55) 59051072 and (55) 59051077

ATTE:

Subdirección de Aeropuertos

Dirección de Inspección en Puertos y Aeropuertos

DGIF-SENASICA-SAGARPA

Tel: 59051000 exts: 51135, 51136, 51133, 51016

Tel-fax: 59051080 ext:51135

C. electrónicos: miguel.ramirez@senasica.gob.mx; alma.espinosa@senasica.gob.mx;

flor.garcia@senasica.gob.mx; dgif-cesar@senasica.gob.mx;

dgif-angeles@senasica.gob.mx; dgif-martin@senasica.gob.mx

Quote by William Henry Hudson.

This morning I went online and typed the following query into Google, “How can I bring my cockatiel into Mexico?”

Gilbert & Mandy

Google, being Google, immediately responded with a page full of information about traveling with a cockatiel. Low and behold and to my great surprise the only URL that turned up (mid-way down the page) that even dealt with someone attempting to bring a bird into Mexico was www.boomerstomexico.com ! Too funny!!!

Many of you have written about the inability to bring animals, other than cats and dogs, into Mexico. We’ve heard stories of birds being confiscated on the border never to be seen again conjuring up terrible thoughts of just exactly what happened to them.

Now, admittedly, our Gilbert is not the most social of birds. Since we bought him his 3-way mirror he seems quite content to spend his entire time on top of his palatial cage – that is where we installed the mirror on a ladder that “rainbows” the cage. He spends hours upon hours talking to himself, whistling the one song he knows (Row, Row, Row Your Boat – only the first few stanzas), doing his Gilbert dance, and bellowing at the top of his lungs.

He is an entertaining bird in the sense that he has no navigational skills what-so-ever. His taking flight, which, thank goodness, does not happen too often, sounds like this huge eagle is flapping its wings frantically to gain altitude and, as he “stumbles” through the air (the only way I can describe it ), the realization sets in…he can’t stop without running into something…a window, door, a table, a picture – well you get my drift. After taking a direct hit, he tumbles like a hockey puck to the floor. Immediately he gains his footing and stretching his entire body to a cool 7 inches or so high (from tail feather to head plumage) he saunters across the floor strutting as if to say “I meant to do that”, with our cat Mandy in tow.

How could we possibly leave this lively and delightful little fellow behind?! Some of you have been kind enough to respond to our email queries in regard to bringing Gilbert in and we do appreciate those responses. However, is there anyone out there who was successful in bringing their bird(s) into Mexico? Surely there is someone! We wait in desperate anticipation.

- – - D. H. Lawrence wrote….

“Round the centre of the covered market, where there is a basin of water, are the flowers: red, white, pink roses in heaps, many-colored little carnations, poppies, bits of larkspur, lemon and orange marigolds, buds of Madonna lilies, pansies, a few forget-me-nots. They don’t bring the tropical flowers. Only the lilies come wild from the hills, and the mauve red orchids.”

More pictures of the simple beauty of Mexico…

Church on the plaza

Cobblestone Streets - Lush Gardens

A Village with Character

The Plaza

Village Life - Color and Character

David spent 10 days in Ajijic just recently (he returned home Friday).  He purposely went without a car choosing to “walk the town”.  To get a feel and sense the flavor of this beautiful village tucked close to Lake Chapala.  And walk he did, to the plaza, what will soon (but not soon enough) be our neighborhood, the streets surrounding the plaza.  He spent time talking with people who live in Ajijic, a lawyer who answered some of his questions, a young photographer who has made this his home, a retiree from Alaska who comes back to the same village constantly, and various other people who supplied him with information generously and without impatience.  Taking time to share what it is like, according to each of them, to live this village life.

I grew to really enjoy his long emails written either in the heat of the afternoon – when walking wasn’t the best idea, or at night after returning from yet another delicious dinner.  His writings were filled with wonder, awe, humor, insight, care and much information.  I sensed how much he enjoyed his time there and the people who he met along the way.

Here are just a few of the pictures he sent home…..

Lake Chapala Society

Lake Chapala Society Pathway

Lake Chapala Society Gardens

David has been in Ajijic since last Tuesday. He will be coming home on Thursday the 21st. He gave himself enough time to find a house never thinking he would find and fall in love with a hacienda in Ajijic just like that….but he did. We have a place to move to. Amazing! Now it’s fm3 cards, movers, etc. Our heads are spinning. We are really psyched and ready to move. He has spent the rest of his time in Ajijic checking our movers, talking with a local lawyer, trying to ask all the questions he can think of before we move. So exciting!

Our Home in Ajijic

Well (my 3rd grade teacher told me never to start a sentence with ‘well’ – it’s something you fall down, she said) I’m getting ready to go down Lakeside on Tuesday August 11th. I’ll be leaving Les behing, something I really don’t want to do. I’ll miss her. But I’ll be looking for a house to rent.

We’ve seen a number of good houses on realtor’s websites these past few months – but since them, many of them have been rented. The number of houses we’d like seems to be dwindling. So I’m hoping that the bulletin boards at Wal-Mart, and maybe the Lake Chapala Society, can point out some new places. I’m also going to do all the asking around I can, seeing if any of the local expats know of any. When we were down in April, as we were sitting in a restaurant, someone mentioned they had a house for rent.

On another front – selling the website for my photo biz – www.hiredavid.com – seems to be going a little slowly. I was hoping to get some good money for it to help in our move, but in this climate, selling it is getting tougher.

I’m concerned about all of this – but Les says not to worry. She’s been convinced all along that things will go just fine – that it’s meant to be.