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Thanks so much for your replies. I will continue to try to call someone at FWS or at Customs and ask them what I can do - short of turning back time and making sure my family members got the health certificate. I'm thinking I should call the port where I intend to cross and speak with a supervisor, and yes, I definitely will be driving because of the quarantine issues with flying.
The reason U. S. Customs saw the bird coming in is that when my family got to Canadian Customs with the bird, the officer was just about to stamp the papers and admit them when he noticed that there was a space on the form for U. S. Customs to sign. So he suggested they go back to U. S. Customs and get the signature for an export and then come back. When they went to U. S. Customs, the officer there didn't want to sign the form and insisted they needed a Fish and Wildlife veterinary exam for export - not true, I know, and my relatives tried to tell them that. I had printed out all the requirements for them before I left the country so they would know what they should have to deal with at the border when they crossed. Finally, after getting nowhere with the U. S. side, they went back to the Canadian Customs and the officer and his supervisor there researched online and looked through all their regulations and said they thought everything was good, so they let him in.
Now that I know there was no U. S. health certificate, I think maybe the U. S. Customs inspector maybe meant that since they didn't have the health certificate from the bird's vet, they would have to have the FWS vet do it. My family was thinking the health certificate was already obtained and sent in to the FWS to get the pet passport, so they were confused about that whole part and I wasn't there, so I don't really know exactly what the U. S. guy was trying to tell them.
In any case, as hard as I tried to make sure everything was done properly, it just didn't work out that way.
And r2rusmc, I agree in general about traveling with my parrot. In this circumstance, I did it because I was forced to be out of the country for 6 months to a year and about 2 weeks after I left, the bird started screaming. He screamed pretty much every waking minute, according to the family. I had warned them it would happen and told them he would stop, although it would probably take a while, but after a couple of weeks, they couldn't take it. He was miserable, they were miserable, and I was miserable once I started getting all the emails about how horrible it was. I knew there was a risk of avian influenza or something causing problems with bringing him back home, but my options were limited.
Thanks again for your responses.
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