Ship Your Reptiles is now Fedex Certified.

[zina10]

I don't really feel all that great about this. Sure, it will be super for anyone that hasn't went through the trouble to get certified.

Although it IS easy to get certified, it does take a bit of effort. But there is a good reason for this. Through this EFFORT you prove to FedEx that you know HOW to ship a reptile properly and safely. That it will be packed the way it should be. That you understand what it takes. Then, and only then, will you get certified.

Now, with "third party" shipping through SYR "anyone" can ship a snake, as long as they are registered with SYR. Now, one would "assume" that said person knows how to properly ship a reptile, or at least learns it from the info at SYR. However, one can also assume that they'll just print out their label, slap it on the box, pack however they see fit, and off it goes. They don't have to worry about loosing their certification. Its not theirs to loose.

And how does SYR make SURE their customers will follow procedure ? They can't, obviously.

There are always some people that will ruin it for the rest. Making it so easy to "legally" ship reptiles to anyone that pays for the label, will sooner or later go south. It only takes a couple of incidents with improperly packed snakes getting out of boxes, or people requesting refunds from Fedex for DOA snakes that were improperly shipped.

Fedex would quickly decide that this isn't worth their time (something UPS figured out already)

If that were to happen I fear not only would SYR be shut down, but Fedex would say goodbye to all snake shipping.

So while this seems like a cool and easy solution for those that don't want to bother getting certified, it might end up biting us all in the behind.

Not meaning to be a negative Nellie, its just that we are quickly running out of ALL shipping options, if Fedex were to go, we'd be in quite a bind...