You might not assume that UPS is the best way to ship your beloved pet across the country. If you want to send the precious holiday supper across the ocean for a son or daughter in the military, is UPS really the safest carrier for the job? Many people are surprised by the truth, that whether considering live animals, bulk food supplies, or even hazardous medical material, UPS is the choice carrier for shipping. Their logistics systems provide the safest, most effective tools to transport items of every kind. Moreover, the same guarantees you count on to protect your goods are kept with UPS guaranteed delivery.

It is best, from the beginning, to outline what UPS does, and what it does not do, so you are not concerned with shipping a palate full of rattlesnakes. UPS will not ship any of the following creatures: snakes, obnoxious insects (flies, mosquitoes, locusts, roaches, termites or weevils), mammals, crocodiles, birds, or threatening animals. Okay, so the list of animals UPS ships is a bit limited. Fluffy the cat cannot go, but Buzzy the bee is cleared to fly.

Maybe only UPS statistics lovers are aware of a few broken rules, like when the United Parcel Service shipped Lun Lun and Yang Yang, twin panda bears, from China to Atlanta, Georgia. Those pandas were mammals, but the catch was two fold; China signed a waiver that stated if UPS failed to make the delivery, they were not responsible, and—well, who would not want to ship a Panda. UPS has had a few other odd packages, (none that broke the rules quite like Lun Lun).

When the country of Japan most needed a sweet, pitted fruit, they turned to UPS and asked them to ship over two point five million cherries from Washington state to the island nation in Asia. UPS came through with a series of overnight shipments that allowed Japanese citizens to celebrate with slot machine style luck. The sweet fruit was covered by UPS guaranteed delivery.

When Venezuela needed to cool down, UPS offered a solution. A UPS owned aircraft transported a chunk of iceberg from Alaska to Caracas, and while the details are little cloudy, that iceberg was very useful to the Venezuelans.

Possibly the strangest shipment (mind you, the UPS guarantee still covered the transportation), was the three and a half ton killer. Shipped from Mexico City, Mexico to Newport, Oregon, Keiko posed a significant logistical challenge to the folks at UPS. He, being a killer whale, needed to travel in water, over land, and eventually by air. UPS took responsibility to ship Keiko to the airport where the military took over. UPS and the oceanic industry that cared for the Orca jointly created his traveling shipment vessel.

Maybe there is no moral to the story, but one good point would be that UPS is a trusted carrier for just about any shipment you could imagine. Getting down to the nitty-gritty details, UPS does have a few ground rules (or air rules) that apply to shipping these strange parcels. With any living items, including food that could spoil (like cherries), the shipper must pay to have UPS deliver overnight services. For the astute observer, the first question likely is: how much does it cost to ship three tons overnight? If you have to ask, you probably cannot afford it.

Odd parcels have a major function. Some landlocked restaurateurs know the value of shipping live mollusks. Botanists understand the plight of shipping colonies of bees or ladybugs. UPS gives every type of business the chance to compete over vast spans of land. They allow people to move the products that keep their businesses running without disabling their function through inflated costs.

Then, by providing the beloved shipping guarantee, customers and clients know that if UPS is even a moment late getting Keiko to his flight, or cherries to Okinawa, they will be reimbursed. The peace of mind UPS guaranteed delivery offers is what every customer wants. It is what anyone who goes with Brown can have; and on the rare occasions that things do not go as planned, only Brown ensures its clients that all will be well. So whether you ship cherries or Orca whales, you can use UPS to go from point A to B.