You fly to your hunt, you're successful...now what? How do you get your meat and/or trophy back home?
I send all my belongings home UPS. Then I pack meat into coolers and bring them home as checked luggage. My last trip to Alaska I brought home my Caribou antlers as checked luggage too. I just protected all the points with cardboard and put a board (hockey stick handle) from beam to beam to prevent squeezing them together. I don't know about the rules now about antlers.
I just got back from an elk hunt in Alberta. Fortunately for me, my parents live there so all the meat and the antlers are at their house. I am looking into shipping it via FedEx or UPS. I flew on United and supposedly after the whole Cecil the Lion debacle United is refusing to fly meat or trophies from hunting. Unfortunately, my ticket was bought and paid for before Cecil became news or I would have taken another airline.
Find a Local Taxidermist - have them ship back. Meat could be frozen and shipped with dry ice? Local angle would always be my approach. Find someone local to handle most of dirty work - then ship everything else back.
This is a great topic. I've always wondered how others have got it done. I've never hunted out of state so really have no idea how it works. I mean imagine you shoot a bull moose in Alaska and you live in Iowa. How the heck do you get everything home?
It doesn't matter what carrier you go with as long as it is a overnight or two day service. The make cold shipping containers that are relatively inexpensive. Your outfitter will need to most likely do it for you as it would be best if the meat and was already processed, packaged, and frozen. They can use cold packs, dry ice, or CO2. Same thing for the cape. Alternately you can buy a cooler and have them drop ship it direct to your outfitter. You do this after harvest, while you or there or when you return. Sweet thing is you have a nice cooler when this is done. Shipping cost is going to be expensive. I am assuming you are hunting deer? If it was me I would donate the meat it or give it to the outfitter. Cape would be frozen, packed, and shipped back to me in a reg box overnight. Rack would be skull capped and sent standard USPS, UPS, Fedex, etc.....
That's pretty much what I would do. Have the meat processed, frozen, packed inside a thick styrofoam cooler(s) packed with dry ice/ice packs sealed with tape around the seams. Put the cooler(s) inside a heavy duty cardboard box and pack gaps tightly with old clothing, sheets or something more than packing peanuts and ship 2 day shipping. Hopefully there wouldn't be any weather delays. Ship on a Monday just in case. For the hide and such, if you were wanting a mount done by your own taxidermist, I'd try to see if a local taxidermist would send the hide off to his tanner and have the tanner ship to you or your taxi instead of back to him. Shouldn't cost anymore that way. Ship the rack yourself to yourself with whatever method you prefer. That's likely the most important part of the trip and why trust it to someone else to screw up. The hide and meat can always be replaced.
Based on recent trail camera pictures I might not have anything to worry about. Not an outfitter Jason, hunting with Brad up at his place. We've talked about having his processor make jerkey or whatever and then ship. Jerkey would be the easiest to ship, right? But any carrier would ship antlers?
When you speak of shipping the rack, would you take it to usps or ups, whatver one were to use and box/wrap there? Or take packaged?
I'd ship it in the smallest package that would safely hold it. I don't think there is any special requirement for shipping the meat or rack, other than it be legally acquired. Other than putting perishable on the meat or maybe fragile on the rack it's really none of their business what the contents are. You can buy sheds off ebay and meat from multiple places, as long as it's legally posessed I wouldn't think anything of it. Might not be a bad idea to give your local CPO a call and see if any state specific regulations are on the books,aybe check with the ship fr state as well. It's amazing how much havoc a lion in Africa can cause
