December Fur Market Report

Trapper and Predator Caller columnist Parker Dozhier continues to provide valuable insight into the recent downturn in the wild fur market.  You can see Parkers most recent fur market report, titled “Fur is not a Commodity”, by visiting the Trapper and Predator Caller website here.

More on NAFA’s Canceled January Fur Sale

After announcing that they would cancel their January fur sale, North American Fur Auctions put out another press release to trappers, providing a better explanation of why the sale was canceled:

December 18, 2009
Dear Wild Fur Producers
Some of you may be wondering why NAFA chose to cancel its January 2010 sale. No doubt it’s a highly unusual thing for an auction company that is owned by producers to do! The short answer is that we believe it is the right thing to do for all trappers.
Let’s start off by saying what everybody already knows—NAFA’s March sale is the wild fur sale
of the season. It is the biggest, most complete offering of North American wild fur anywhere.
It’s where buyers believe price levels for wild fur are set. It’s the sale that no buyer can afford to
miss and it’s the sale that we believe can potentially turn things around for wild fur this year.
We are confident that there will be 400–500 buyers at our March sale.
Let’s also say what should not have to be said, that no other company has invested the money,
energy and commitment into wild fur promotion that NAFA has. Just compare what our team of
ten international promotion agents have been doing for the past six months:
• Three weeks of Studio NAFA Wild Fur workshops in China teaching Chinese manufacturers how to cut, sew and design with wild fur in
October and November
• Ensuring designers in New York, Russia, China, Italy and France will include wild fur in their Fall/Winter collections for 2010
• Planning and creating a Northern Lights wild fur garment collection that will be manufactured and distributed in Chinese retail stores this fall exclusively in wild fur. The first prototypes will be displayed for orders during the Beijing and Hong Kong Fairs in January and February, in time for people to take orders before our March sale
• Planning and creating a collection of wild fur accessories and garments exclusively designed by young people for young people in retail stores around the world. These samples will be on display during the Milan Fair and in the February designer collections before our March Auction.
NORTH AMERICAN FUR AUCTIONS
These past few months we have been working hard to make sure that the promotional programs we designed would lead to direct buying support from the trade. Given the past year, that was a job in itself. After working hard to make sure that buyers would come to our March wild fur sale, we wanted to be sure that they would find as much product as possible, put up in a way that would make it easy for them to buy. We wanted as many of our trappers to benefit from what we hope will be a turnaround, and we wanted to send a positive message to the trade that wild fur continues to be a very important part of a successful fur industry.
Now some people may be disappointed they didn’t get to sell a few skins early in January, and some may end up disappointed later that they did sell early in January. No one can guarantee what the market will do. But as experts who believe in wild fur, we thought it was time to do something different to benefit our trappers and wild fur.
Making a decision, maybe an unpopular one for some, is what leaders have to do. Lee Iacocca said
it best. “Lead, follow or get out of the way.” We will all know soon if our decision was the right one, but we believe that making any decision that might help our trappers is better than blindly
following tradition.
Good luck to all of us in the upcoming season.
Sincerely
Michael Mengar
President and CEO
North American Fur Auctions

Let’s hope the strategy works and fur prices rise in March!

Kirk DeKalb’s Beaver Trapping Video

I just received a copy of Kirk DeKalb’s TrappinTales video to review and watched the full 2+ hours.  In short, the video is great!  I’ll post a review here within the next few weeks, but until then, you can check out a preview of the dvd below.  Be sure to check out www.trappintales.com to purchase a copy of the full length dvd.

NAFA Cancels January Sale

This week, North American Fur Auctions announced that it is canceling its January fur sale. The January sale is the first major auction of the year, and fur buyers and trappers from around the world look to this auction to help define the fur market for the rest of the season.
Here’s NAFA’s official announcement:

December 14, 2009
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ALL NAFA WILD FUR SHIPPERS

Due to the limited quantities of wild fur expected for our January 11, 2010 auction, NAFA decided today to cancel this auction sale.
For selected articles normally made available in January, interested buyers can contact our Private Treaty Department after January 9, 2010.
All goods received from our wild fur consignors for January and not sold by Private Treaty will be combined with the much larger quantities expected to be received for our March 12–18, 2010 auction, which is guaranteed to attract all the major world fur buyers. We will offer a complete catalogue of well matched lots in large volumes in March. This is what is required to attract the demand and attention we need to start the season.
NAFA is the dominant marketer of Wild Fur, a distinction we take very seriously, and we are determined to re-establish a viable and profitable market in today’s fur consuming areas such as China and Russia.
We feel that some improvements due to our marketing efforts will be seen in our March Auction.

So what does this mean for the future of wild fur this season?  I’m not completely sure.  For one thing, it means that trappers haven’t been sending furs to NAFA.  These historically low quantities mean that:  1) many trappers aren’t getting out and trapping due to an expectation of very low fur prices, and 2) those who are catching fur are holding on to it, waiting for fur prices to rise again.

Given the circumstances, it doesn’t look good for fur prices this winter, but there is still a lot of uncertainty in the air.  Who knows what will happen in March?  Historically, NAFA’s March sale has really been the big one, but the January sale is usually a good indicator of how the March sale will turn out.

As far as I know, FHA (Fur Harvesters Auctions, NAFA’s only close competition) has not canceled their fur sale, so perhaps we can get a better indication of fur prices based on their results.  Who knows, FHA shippers might have better luck with higher fur quantities and more buyers present due to the canceled NAFA sale.

I do know one thing, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens at the FHA sale.  I’m not very optimistic about the fur market right now, but you never know what’s going to happen in the coming months.

The fur market has experienced some really tough times lately, and I’m not sure that we’ve seen the worst of it.  But if trappers can weather this storm, things will recover.  There will always be a demand for wild fur.

Fun Fact: Fisher Recovery in Minnesota

Did you know that fishers were once a very rare furbearer in the state of Minnesota?  Here’s a clip from an old Minnesota newspaper back in 1969:

40 years ago (1969)

The long arm of chance reached into the life of Pine River trapper Walter Norman recently. He made trapper’s dream of catching what appeared to be a 15-pound black weasel, but it was a rare fisher, not often seen in Minnesota.

Here’s some info on the fisher population from the Minnesota DNR:

Fishers were nearly extinct in Minnesota by the early 1900s. But the population has grown steadily since then. Since the late 1970s, the population has remained at more than 10,000, enough to support a regulated trapping harvest of about 2,000 each year.

Conflict Over Bear Snaring in Nova Scotia?

According to a recent news article, a Nova Scotia man is pushing to outlaw bear snaring in the province, citing it as ‘barbaric’.

What the retired school teacher and bird hunter has failed to recognize, however, is that this snaring is the same exact method used by biologists across Canada and the U.S. to capture bears for research purposes.

Here’s what the local Trappers Association had to say:

Ross White, vice-president of the Trappers’ Association of Nova Scotia, says bear snaring is considered humane and effective.

Snares are comprised of a steel cable that loops around the leg holding the bear until the trapper returns. Only certified trappers can get a permit to snare a bear. They are required by law to check the traps every 24 hours, he said.

The trapper usually then uses a high-powered rifle to shoot the snared bear, said Mr. White, who lives in the Truro area. Bears most often get caught in the snares at night and the traps are checked first thing in the morning, he said.

“Most generally, they are not in distress very long. When you go to the snare, the bear is laying there. It is quite comfortable. It is quite relaxed,” he said.

The Natural Resources Department was contacted about the issue:

In 2008, the Natural Resources Department issued 145 bear snaring permits. Sixty-two bears were snared, according to provincial statistics. During the same period, about 2,680 bear hunting licences were issued, with 532 bears hunted and killed.

Only one bear is allowed per hunter or trapper during the bear harvesting season, which runs from the middle of September to Dec. 1.

Tony Nette, manager of wildlife resources for the Natural Resources Department, said there is no move to ban bear snaring.

Mr. Kendall’s complaint is the first he has heard in many years, he said Friday.

The local sportsmen’s association weighed in as well:

Tony Rodgers, executive director of the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters, also said he has not heard any complaints about the practice.

“We see no problem with it,” he said.

Not only is bear snaring a valuable tradition in eastern Canada and Maine, it plays an important role in helping manage bear populations.

Nova Scotia’s black bear population has been increasing for the last 15 years, and snaring is an effective way for getting rid of nuisance bears, Mr. Nette said.

“They are hard to hunt. . . . There is a lot of conflict with agriculture,” said Mr. Nette, who oversees management of bear, moose and deer in Nova Scotia.

Natural Resources Department field staff is run ragged in the summer with complaints of bears destroying bee hives and blueberry crops, said Mr. Nette, who works in Kentville.

Hopefully one man’s problem with this bear snaring doesn’t lead to a huge animal rights campaign to take away another one of the traditional practices of local trappers.  Let’s try being reasonable.  Live and let live.

Read the full story here.

Take a Kid Trapping

TheSouthern.com has a great local news article about a dad who got back into trapping this season to give his seventh grade twin boys the chance to experience it for the first time.  It’s a great story about a family experiencing more together through trapping.

If you’ve trapped as a child and haven’t been into it lately, consider taking your kids out on the trapline.  It’s a great way to bond as a family and teach kids values and the ways of the outdoors.

You can read the full story here.

Animal Rights Groups Appeal Ruling on Maine Lynx Lawsuit

When a federal judge ruled in favor of trappers in the Maine lynx lawsuit last month, there was no doubt that the animal rights groups would be back to contest the case.

I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

Just last Thursday, the Wildlife Alliance of Maine and the Animal Welfare Institute filed an appeal to the decision in the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read more background on the lynx lawsuit, and read the Bangor Daily News story on the appeal.  It’s always interesting to read the comments on the Bangor Daily News articles as well.

We’ll keep you posted on how things go.

TrappingVideos.com

Information-sharing and entertainment has come full circle in the trapping industry.  Think about it – ten years ago how many of us could imagine a whole series of websites and forums dedicated to trapping and trappers?  I sure didn’t think I would be posting news and info that could be accessed by people all around the world.  The realization of the tech revolution in the trapping world is probably best demonstrated in a new website, TrappingVideos.com.

I stumbled across this site a couple of weeks ago.  It’s kind of like a trapper’s version of YouTube.  The site hosts a cross section of available video in the trapping world.  Just today, I counted over 345 videos available for viewing.  These range from low-quality recordings of trappers making routine sets, to trailers for professional trapping instructional videos that are available for sale.  There are lots of videos in which trap designers demonstrate their new trap models and ideas.  Others show how to use a specific trap, or to make a particular set.  Some videos are even professionally created by state wildlife agencies to promote trapping and furbearer conservation.

TrappingVideos.com is the first all-trapping video website I have ever run across and it’s jam packed with days worth of viewing.  I know I’ll be spending more time there, and you should check it out too!