As a regular reader of my colleagues’ postings about the southern border, I know that the Customs and Border Protection officers there are doing precious little (on orders from Washington) to stem the influx of illegal aliens.
But I am also a regular reader of CBP press releases and can assure my readers that CBP officers never rest; they have proudly announced that they have saved the American people from — wait for it — six taxidermied birds and 20 horned animal skulls.
The CBP at Philadelphia found these legally prohibited items and got their press officers to issue a light-hearted publicity release on the subject. Who knew that CBP pressies could use a pun in a headline: “Philadelphia CBP Calls a Fowl on Unpermitted Wildlife Products”.
Both shipments violated federal wildlife protection laws. Both shipments led to photos of the birds and of the skulls, the former beautiful and the latter, scary.
The story led to my typing the adjective “taxidermied” for the first time in my life, a word so unusual that my usually sophisticated spell-check mechanism choked on it.
It all reminded me that the “C” in CBP stands for the word Customs, and that its officers also cope with illicit flows other than human ones.