Our sister districts in California have filed separate federal criminal cases charging the illegal selling of guitar picks made from endangered turtles and the illegal importing of bear bile for use as an aphrodisiac.
San Francisco Chronicle, 3/28/09
A Santa Rosa woman has been charged with illegally selling guitar picks made from the shells of endangered turtles.
Qing Song, 54, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on one felony charge and two misdemeanors for allegedly possessing and selling parts of endangered wildlife, Hawksbill sea turtles. The creatures can be legally imported only for noncommercial purposes, prosecutors said.
From 2005 to 2007, the indictment said, Song brought turtle parts into the United States from China in the form of guitar picks, or of shells that could be used to make picks. Such picks are "highly desired by skilled musicians, despite their illegality," the indictment said, because they are believed to produce a better tone than plastic picks.
A South Korean woman staying in Los Angeles was charged by federal authorities Friday with illegally importing more than two pounds of bear bile, used for medicinal purposes and as an aphrodisiac in some Asian communities.