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<< Notifications of 1999

Notification to the Parties

No. 1999/83 Geneva, 5 November 1999

CONCERNING:

Tagging of crocodilian skins

1. The Secretariat has become aware of two minor problems experienced by some Parties concerning the implementation of Resolution Conf. 9.22 on the Univers,Arial,Helveticaal tagging system for the identification of crocodilian skins.

2. As recommended in paragraph d) of Resolution Conf. 9.22, the tags used to mark crocodilian skins should contain the following information: the ISO two-letter code for the country of origin; a unique serial identification number; a standard species code; and the year of production. In some cases, this information appears in the sequence: country of origin, year of production, serial number, species code (e.g. TH990001POR). In these cases, confusion may result regarding the year 2000 (e.g. TH000001POR). In such instances the Secretariat recommends that Parties separate the year of production and the serial number with a hyphen (-) or an oblique slash (/), resulting in the code TH00-0001POR or TH00/0001POR. Not every Party that uses this marking system will be affected, as the sequence within the code may vary.

3. Some Parties have informed the Secretariat of a problem of labelling skins derived from crocodilian hybrids. Until Resolution Conf. 9.22 is amended by the Conference of the Parties, the Secretariat recommends that such Parties use, instead of the standard species code in Annex 1 of the Resolution, the designation HYB or, where the parentage is known, the two three-letter codes for the parents, separated by the character 'x' (e.g. PORxSIA where the hybrid is a cross between Crocodylus porosus and Crocodylus siamensis).