Polar bear skulls shipped to New York by boutique owner from Canada, feds say
A polar bear skull was packaged and shipped in a box labeled as a “gift” when it was illegally mailed from Canada to the United States, federal officials said.
Now a 27-year-old woman and boutique owner from Montreal, Quebec, has pleaded guilty to trafficking protected wildlife, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of New York said in a Friday, Jan. 28 news release.
Vanessa Rondeau, owner of The Old Cavern Boutique in Montreal, is accused of shipping polar bear skulls and other wildlife parts to and within the U.S. from 2019 until 2021, including a taxidermy American crow, Hartmann’s zebra skin, and bird, weasel and bat skulls, a criminal complaint shows.
Rondeau’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Bagley, told McClatchy News that Rondeau “deeply regrets and takes full responsibility for her conduct.”
“Other items she imported into the U.S. as part of her business were not endangered species, but rather were simply not labeled in accordance with U.S. import/export regulations,” Bagley said. “Vanessa does not sell any live animals, and has never harmed an animal.”
In addition to shipping a polar bear skull from Canada, Rondeau traveled to the U.S. and then shipped a skull to a special agent in New York who was pretending to be a customer in the state, an agent said in the complaint.
Rondeau marketed the polar bear skulls on her business’ Facebook page, The Old Cavern Boutique, the complaint shows.
She sold one skull for $780 and another for $584.11, court documents show.
It’s legal to sell polar bear remains within Canada with the right licensing, but it’s not legal to import them to the U.S., Bagley said. Rondeau bought the polar bear skulls from native tribes in Canada “who rely on this type of commerce to sustain their way of life.”
In total, Rondeau is accused of trafficking a total of $37,204 in wildlife parts from Canada to the U.S., the news release states.
She faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Rondeau is scheduled to be sentenced on June 9.
This story was originally published January 28, 2022 at 8:17 PM with the headline "Polar bear skulls shipped to New York by boutique owner from Canada, feds say."
