Cedar Ridge, CA — Frequent traveler and Cedar Ridge, CA resident Pete Johnson was briefly detained by Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) officials when they discovered a whole slaughtered New Zealand lamb in his carry on luggage.
“Jennifer and I were on our way back from our New Zealand vacation,” said a somewhat irritated Mr. Johnson. “And before we left, I told the wife ‘let’s bring back a real Kiwi lamb.’ So I found a farmer outside of Auckland who slaughtered the creature for me. I wrapped it in plastic and shoved it into a carry on bag.”
Although it is not generally a problem to take food items on an airplane, the problem is when you arrive at your destination. When one is traveling to a different country and needs to go through customs and security, when you arrive there you may have problems bringing food, particularly raw meat, fruits and vegetables, into that country.
“I got through customs just fine at SFO,” continued Mr. Johnson. “Even the drug sniffing dogs didn’t care. But the TSA–man–they confiscated my whole butchered lamb. The dickheads.”
According to sources as San Francisco International Airport, Mr. Johnson needed an import license to bring foreign meats into the United States. Adding to Mr. Johnson’s potential troubles, is that he did not properly wrap or prepare the slaughtered animal, leading to “seepage” through his carry on luggage which alerted the TSA agents.
“I guess I could have been a little smarter about the whole thing,” concluded Mr. Johnson. “I gotta learn to think things through a bit more. You know, research stuff.”
