>> Well, every day we receive a shipment from Fed Ex and that includes all,
what are called the "urgents",
or the specimens that are intercepted at the ports of entry around the country.
And our laboratory may get 40 or 50 of these urgents every day.
So our lab then splits them up to the specialists.
I get all the longhorn beetles and we pretty much have to drop what we're doing.
Once they're received, we'll open the packages.
We'll identify them.
In many cases at this point I'm familiar with a lot of the species.
They could be from all over the world: Africa, Asia, Mexico.
They could even be domestic species that are intercepted at the ports.
But luckily it only takes me on average 10 or 15 minutes to do the species identification.
We have a system, a database, that we will do this identification and enter it online.
So once I make my identification, I will open a database online and enter the data,
the species identification and this will get transmitted immediately
to the plant protection quarantine unit of USDA,
which then will transmit my identification to the ports of origin,
as well as make decisions on what action, if anything, to take with the cargo.