Customs acts as screen against potential eco-threats

— -- Laurentine Yanou thought she'd brought home from Cameroon the perfect centerpieces for her daughter's wedding reception . Instead, she learned upon landing at Washington Dulles International Airport that she'd transported a possible threat to the U.S. ecosystem.

Wearing plastic gloves, agricultural specialist Rebecca Rhinehart inspected dozens of bundles of straw that Yanou had stuffed into suitcases. She pointed to dark spots sprinkled throughout. Fungus, Rhinehart said.

"It's got disease on it, and it's got a lot of it," Rhinehart told Yanou on a recent afternoon at Dulles' U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint. Rhinehart seized the straw and sent a crushed Yanou away with four large empty suitcases.

Stepping off a plane and handing over your passport is the easy part of returning to the United States from abroad. Before you can leave the airport, you have to clear U.S. Customs, a place where an ever-changing list of forbidden items can confound officers and travelers alike.

Scenes similar to Yanou's are played out many times daily at airports throughout the nation: Travelers return with seemingly innocuous items, such as mangoes and oranges, and the bizarre, such as guinea pig meat and live birds stuffed in carry-on bags. Many of them could spread avian flu, foot-and-mouth disease, and any number of other illnesses.

Sometimes travelers intentionally smuggle forbidden items. Other times, as in Yanou's case, they don't know their souvenirs are tainted. It's up to Customs and Border Protection officers, agricultural specialists and fish and wildlife experts to sort it out — and keep out anything that could be a threat.

"It's not personal," says Christopher Downing, supervisory Customs and Border Protection officer at Dulles. "When we take their food, it's the protection of our ecosystem. It's not that we don't want you to have it. It's just that we don't have a natural defense for it."

Nobody can be sure of exactly how much plant and animal disease or harmful invasive species enter the country, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the economic damage exceeds $1 billion annually.

What's allowed in and what's forbidden is so complicated that the best advice that officers have for travelers is to err on the side of caution. Declare everything.

Yanou had declared the straw and averted a fine, which generally ranges from $300 to $1,000 for agricultural items. "My daughter will be so disappointed," she says. "I didn't know it was the kind of thing they don't allow. I'm disappointed, but it's fine. It's not going to kill me."

Intercept and quarantine

Last year, Customs intercepted 825,140 agricultural products that had to be quarantined at airports across the nation, says Dianna Bowman, acting deputy executive director of Agricultural Operational Oversight for U.S. Customs.

Of those interceptions, 86,366 were at Los Angeles International Airport. New York's JFK had 85,347, and Miami International had 58,136. The most active airport: San Francisco International, with 113,762 interceptions. Officials at those airports say fruit and meat, especially pork, are the most common forbidden goods. But items vary by flight and region. At Houston Intercontinental Airport, for instance, chicken noodle soup is a common find.