diff --git a/moto/core/responses.py b/moto/core/responses.py
index c708edb8b..9a46f8ac5 100644
--- a/moto/core/responses.py
+++ b/moto/core/responses.py
@@ -20,7 +20,6 @@ import six
 from six.moves.urllib.parse import parse_qs, urlparse
 
 import xmltodict
-from pkg_resources import resource_filename
 from werkzeug.exceptions import HTTPException
 
 import boto3
@@ -766,6 +765,9 @@ class AWSServiceSpec(object):
     """
 
     def __init__(self, path):
+        # Importing pkg_resources takes ~60ms; keep it local
+        from pkg_resources import resource_filename  # noqa
+
         self.path = resource_filename("botocore", path)
         with io.open(self.path, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
             spec = json.load(f)