One of BWI’s increasingly frequent flights to Iceland turned up some luggage that will probably be talked about around the airport security checkpoints for a long time to come.
On Feb. 7, inspectors looking at baggage that arrived on the Iceland flight found what are believed to whale bones. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the bones required a second look due to regulations that restrict importing some types of bones. The owner of the luggage was released, but the items had to stay with BWI officials.
The bones are currently classified as “possible” whale bones. For now, security officials are going by the man’s own admission that the bones were from the giant sea mammals. They will conduct a formal test to determine the origin of the bones. Specifically, they are looking to see if the bones came from an endangered species. That would put the traveller in the crosshairs of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Don’t laugh.
“We take our job of enforcing laws that protect endangered animal life very seriously and will aggressively prevent the illegal introduction of these products into the U.S.,” said Dianna Bowman, CBP Area Port Director for the Port of Baltimore.
