What Buckdog posted, IN SPADES! It can be done but it's not for weenies, those that think someone owes them something for the money they are spending, those that don't have any patience or are not adept at negotiating and enduring dealing with incompetence on an epic scale.
First thing to remember is, the RSA taxidermist has his money, the shipper has his money, Delta has their money and USF&W doesn't want to deal with individuals and every step of the way anyone connected with your shipment will act like it's their first day on the job. Oh, and did I mention all the while, someone else has your trophies. Long winded below but I'll give you a synopsis of my dealings with self importation. I'm on the east coast so that makes it somewhat easier and this may not apply to someone living out in the boonies away from POEs, USF&W enforcement or customs facilities. They may be well advised to bite the bullet and pay a broker to lose his hair.
I have done five crates, four for myself and one for a friend. It is usually a clusterfuck all the way until you load it on your truck. First you must deal with the African shipper. These can be clueless buffoons who decide to ship your crate at Christmas time, over a four day U.S. holiday weekend or some other time when USF&W personnel are on vacation or off for the holidays. And yes, these same shippers will repeat this every year, regardless of you telling them not to do it. (Thanksgiving? What's that????) Next you will deal with Delta air cargo which in my book, holds the record for the absolute worst run business in the air carrier and cargo world. They have prove to me time and again, customers are a necessary evil. Hundreds of trophy shipments come through Atlanta Delta Cargo every year BUT yours is the first one they have ever dealt with. They give the word, incompetence, new meaning. Eventually they will release the paperwork for your shipment to go to USF&W but it will be after a dozen phone calls, two faxes, four emails and six courier runs to retrieve it. Now we have reached the USF&W service. IF you have all your paperwork in order and IF they release the shipment for further movement, you will now be good to go for the next segment of its trip, if any. If they decide to check your shipment, they may remove the fastened trophies and then return them to the box unfastened. Hope you didn't have anything fragile in the crate. Now if Delta Cargo, in their infinite incompetence, doesn't wait for USF&W release, they will ship your crate anyway. I had two crates that went from Atlanta on a nice 800 mile truck ride to the major airport where I clear customs with them and then back another 800 miles to Atlanta because they weren't cleared by USF&W. Chalk up another week of waiting. Did I mention clueless? Delta's right in their with the best of them.
What follows is my experience in'17, pretty much representative for all shipments.
After about two weeks of hair removal, the shipment is now at my major airport's bonded warehouse ready for customs clearance and then eventually on to my truck. It's now off to customs in another building a mile away. Now Customs is one that "usually" has their shit together but then again, my shipment with animal stuff is the first one they have ever encountered. Fortunately I have never had a glitch with them and they seem intent on doing a good job and they are the most trouble free to deal with.
Customs cleared, back to the shipping docks, wait around for a half hour while the agents clear a shipment of rubber dog shit from China and line up a forklift operator to load the waiting trucker.
Paid the receiving agent fee and backed my pickup truck up to the loading dock. After spotting my crate on the warehouse floor, I try catching the attention of the dock workers and show them my paperwork when I was told "that's not my job". I look around and try to spot someone with some semblance of authority and/or mental acuity to plead my case. By this time, the guy I needed to see is either on break or on lunch and a half hour to forty five minutes has elapsed. The others wandering around on the warehouse floor glance over at me and go back to their Twinkies and coffee. Finally, I have collared someone with some authority to move the shipment and things now seem to percolating. The guy who runs the forklift is busy with another load so the "authority" instructs one of the wanderers to get on a fork lift and get the crate. He spends ten minutes looking for it after I told him it's that big wooden one fifteen feet from where we are standing. Now if you've ever seen a fork lift, well, there's two long things protruding out from the front of the machine. It's why they call it a "fork" lift. This is where it gets even better. The bottom of the crate is held off the floor by 2x4s so as to facilitate the forks moving between the floor and the bottom of the crate. Well, Mr. Genius decides that's not the way to lift the crate. He's going to go and get a buddy to tilt the crate so he can get the forks under the 2x4. Finally someone just another step up on the evolutionary ladder informs him of his stupidity and the crate is now on the forks properly. As the commercials say "But wait, there's more!". The loading dock height is for a standard box or flatbed semi trailer but there is one dock that has a scissors jack operated elevator on the macadam in front of the dock where a crate can be loaded at dock level then lowered to pickup bed level. The forklift has to be operated to the edge of the dock when Mr. Genius jumps of the forklift and proclaims he cannot do it. He is afraid he will drive off the dock and somehow get injured. (by this time, I would have like to injure him in more ways than one).
Now it's a wait until the one guy out of five who has the "skill" to use this dock has broken free from his load of rubber dogshit. One hour and twenty minutes have now passed not including the time at customs. Now the elevator has non removable sides, about 30" high and the crate is not square, a little wider than long, and only fits on the elevator ONE way. Are those 2x4s oriented longwise so it fits? You gotta be kidding. Gee thanks Mr. Taxidermist crate builder. Yep, back on the tilt the box operation. Things are really moving now. Crate on the forks and on to the elevator, jockey it off the forks, the operator lowers the forks and pushes it on to the bed of my truck. Two hours from the time I pulled in to the parking lot until departure for home. A couple ratchet straps for the ride down the interstate (now at rush hour, my bad) and finally home and open the box only to find one of the trophies has damage. Thanks to the African shippers, thanks to Delta Cargo, Thanks to USF&W, thanks to Customs and finally thanks to the warehouse doofusses. It was fun and doing it myself, I've saved enough money to pay for another African hunt..
And that's all there is to it! Good Luck, you'll need a whole boatload of it.
To the OP, If I lived as close as you do, I would definitely do self importation but ONLY if the taxidermists you use in Africa have their act together 110%. One glitch by them or the flunkies they have working for them and it's an entirely new ball game. If that paperwork isn't right, you could lose your trophies and subsequently any money involved in their procurement. IIRC, there are a few horror stories on this site regarding dealing with USF&W, in my opinion, a totally out of control government agency , bereft of common sense and one who regularly oversteps its authority as mandated by Congress.
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