It’s durable, warm, glamorous and striking. And it comes from an animal that is abundant in the wild, easy to trap, and easy to farm. In short, all the right boxes are checked for a great fur. It was also once the height of fashion. Yet today it's rarely seen in stores, and a pelt sells for the price of a coffee.

This is the conundrum that is skunk fur. Are the fur trade and consumers turning their noses up for no good reason?

Tale of the Tape

Let’s start with the end product.

Skunk fur is durable - less durable than beaver, but ahead of the pack and on a par with mink.

Skunk fur is warm. It's no caribou, but unless you live in the Arctic, it'll work fine.

Skunk fur is glamorous and striking. The guard hairs are long (1-2") with a glossy lustre, and are held erect by thick underfur. And the colouration is unmistakeable: deep brown or black, usually with white striping and cream patterns.

The most prized pelts have solid black backs with a blue sheen, and come from colder regions where pelts are thicker, hairs are finer, and the black is blackest. (No fur is blacker than northern skunk.) If there is one white stripe, and it's long and wide (hooded skunk), this may be retained in a garment, while pelts with two stripes (striped skunk) are normally dyed a uniform black.

So what’s the downside? Not much.

The guard hairs are slightly coarser than fox, the most luxurious long-haired fur.

The black guard hairs, if not dyed, fade to a dull reddish-brown if exposed to sunlight for too long a time. (Just store your fur in a closet.)

Skunk fur is reputed to have an odour, especially when wet, but this should not be a problem today. Using proper trapping techniques, it is rare that an animal sprays. And even if there is a slight vestigial smell, a skilled fur dresser can remove it.

And last, but perhaps not least, it’s called “skunk”.

Skunk Fur Production

So how easy is it to produce skunk pelts? Pretty easy. Let’s start with trapping.

First, skunks are abundant. The striped skunk, the most commonly traded species, has a conservation status of “Least concern” with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, co-exists with humans, and in many parts of its range is growing in numbers.

Second, skunks lack caution and cunning. A box trap works great for nuisance skunks, but is too costly and bulky for fur trapping. Foothold (restraining) traps or bodygrip traps are better.

Farming skunk is also easy. Indeed, skunk farms were once seen as a stepping stone for beginners looking to graduate to more challenging and valuable furbearers.

Reasons why farming is easy include: Skunk are easily tamed, and at feeding time just come running. They’re poor climbers and have few natural predators, so pens are open-topped. They’ll eat just about anything - table scraps are fine. And selective breeding produces all-black skunk in just three or four generations.

Curious History

So why aren’t we all dressed from head to toe in skunk fur? Its curious history may shed some light.

For the longest time North Americans had no interest in skunk fur, but it wasn't a case of singling it out. They weren't crazy about fox either. And even when skunk was “discovered” in the mid-1800s, demand was not at home but from Europe.

Skunk quickly became America's second most valuable fur harvest after muskrat, with almost all pelts being traded in London and Leipzig. To meet demand, the first farms emerged in the 1880s, but unreliable pelt prices forced most pioneers to close. Then the farms sprung up again at the turn of the century as European demand surged. In 1911, pelt sales in London peaked at just over 2 million.

And that's how things stayed right up to World War I. The domestic market remained tiny, a fact historians attribute to a lack of Europe's deodorising skills. Or perhaps it was that American dressers had to work with pelts so pungent, European brokers wouldn't take them.

Whatever the case, World War I changed everything, not just for skunk but the entire fur trade. With shipments to Europe disrupted, the age of major American auction houses began, first in St. Louis in 1915, then in New York in 1916.

Demand for skunk in North America finally took off, and when the European market came back on stream in 1918, the golden age of skunk had arrived.

Seeing the potential, the US Department of Agriculture published the Economic Value of North American Skunks, in 1914 and again in 1923. “Skunk fur is intrinsically of high value,” it stated unequivocally. “The propagation of skunks for their fur promises to develop into an important industry.”

Skunk trapping also helped countless rural families weather the Great Depression, mailing their pelts to Sears, Roebuck in return for a check or store credit. Through its annual newsletters and radio shows, Sears (aka "Johnny Muskrat") created a whole new generation of trappers, and became one of the largest fur buyers in the US.

All in the Name?

And then the age of skunk was over. World War II ended and fur fashion shifted dramatically. Long hair was out and short hair was in. Skunk pelts were almost worthless, red fox pelts were "unsaleable", and even silver fox was scorned. Mink was the new king, a position it has not relinquished to this day.

SEE ALSO: Why is American mink the world's favourite fur?

But a change in fashion was not the whole story. If it had been, skunk would have rebounded along with fox, which still has a loyal following today.

Some observers blame skunk's demise on stricter labelling laws. In the 1930s, the fur trade often took considerable liberties when it came to labelling. Women of all social classes wanted fur, but with the Depression raging, few husbands could afford the premium stuff. What they could afford was humble rabbit, but that didn't sound very glamorous. Enter creative marketing.

“Minkony” was rabbit dyed to look like mink. “Ermiline” was white rabbit, sometimes with black spots for that authentic ermine look. Then there were totally fictitious species like “Baltic black fox”, “Belgian beaver”, “French sable” and “Roman seal” - all rabbit!

Other furs got the creative treatment too. “Hudson seal” was one of the most popular sellers, though it was actually sheared and dyed muskrat. And no fur, of course, needed a new name more than skunk. Why tell Ma’am she was swathed in the skins of foul-smelling critters when you could sell her “American sable”, “Alaskan sable” or “black marten”?

Finally the US Federal Trade Commission cried foul. From 1938 on, the true identity of the furbearer had to be given, though the name of the animal being imitated could stay. Goodbye “American sable", hello "sable-dyed skunk".

In 1952 it went further with the Fur Products Labeling Act. Explaining the need for the new law, the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Mrs. Eskimo, who cures the pelt brought to her by husband, has no trouble telling a mink from a muskrat. But Mrs. Housewife, shopping for a fur coat, finds herself in a quandary. There are so many furs and so many names!”

Henceforth, only “the true English names for the animals in question" should appear, "or in the absence of a true English name for an animal, the name by which such animal can be properly identified in the United States.”

The trade resisted, and some unusual new names were approved. "Rock sable", for example, became "bassarisk", even though most people called them ring-tailed cats. But it spelled the end for furs like “China mink” and “Japanese mink” (both weasel).

As for skunk, in a few short years it had gone from being "American sable" to “sable-dyed skunk”, to plain ol' "skunk". Was it too much for consumers? Are we really that shallow? Apparently yes. A rose by any other name does not smell as sweet!

Skunk Fur Today

The last skunk fur farms closed decades ago, and offerings of pelts at auction today are small. Prices, meanwhile, seem frozen in time.

The largest seller today of skunk fur is North American Fur Auctions, in Toronto. At its wild fur sale last June-July, 2,332 pelts were offered (compared with 310,667 muskrat), of which 70% sold. Average price was $5.97.

In February 1920 in St. Louis – that’s almost a century ago - skunk pelts brought an average of $5.14. In today's money that's $61!

From time to time, skunk has made small comebacks. In the early 1970s, in particular, it was considered quirky and cool, but it soon went the same way of Afros and bell bottoms.

Popular designers and fashion houses are still willing to give skunk a try. Just recently, America’s darling of the gossip columns, Kim Kardashian, caused a stir when she stepped out in a fabulous skunk coat from Lanvin.

Can Kim bring skunk in from the fashion cold? Or will it remain forever sealed in a 1930s time capsule?

Could a kick-start campaign bring this remarkable, but under-appreciated, fur back into the limelight? What do you think?

As we cross Confederation Bridge – the graceful, 13-kilometer, engineering marvel that links New Brunswick to beautiful Prince Edward Island in Canada's far east – I am invaded by a swell of memories and nostalgia. Our last trip to PEI was six years ago, to attend my son’s wedding, and my Dad travelled with us. This time I am heading for a family reunion, but also in search of the origins of fox farming.

Crossing the Northumberland Strait six years ago, my father, Jack, told us about his trips here with his father – my grandfather, Armand – many years before to buy fox pelts. Dad joined his father’s fur-manufacturing business when he got out of the Air Force, at the end of World War Two. PEI was where fox farming began at the end of the 19th century, and in the early 1950s it was still a leading production centre.

So when we arrived on the island, Dad wanted to stop in Summerside to search for the dry cleaners where he and my grandfather had set up shop to meet the farmers. “There was a bank across the street; they let us store the pelts in their vault overnight,” Dad recalled.

In downtown Summerside we found several tributes to PEI’s fabled fox industry – a statue of a silver fox on a stone pedestal, a huge painted fox mural on the wooden wall of an old building – but no dry cleaner across from a bank. We were about to give up – after all, a half-century had passed – but even at 87, Dad was not one to quit easily.

He went into a small jewelry store and asked the young salesperson if she knew where his dry cleaner might be. She shook her head. But then she picked up the phone to ask her Mom – PEI is that kind of place – and, bingo! The dry cleaner had closed some years before, but Mom remembered where it had been so we could do our pilgrimage. Mission accomplished!

Picturesque Alberton

Fast forward six years. Dad is no longer with us, but my son and his wife now have three young children. We are heading to the farm (dairy and seed potatoes) where my daughter-in-law was raised, to vacation with her siblings and their spouses and kids. My wife and I also take some time on our own to explore beautiful Prince County – and to track down the origins of the fox farming industry that first brought my father and grandfather here.

We find it in the picturesque little town of Alberton. From the wharf you can see Cherry Island, where the world’s first fox farm was built, in the early 1890s. The extraordinary story is recorded in Alberton’s charming little historical museum in the centre of town.

Charles Dalton and Robert Oulton were the pioneers of breeding and raising foxes in captivity. Their foxes were “silver-blacks”, a naturally occurring mutation of the Canadian red fox.

The story began some time before 1890 when a Mr. Lamb dug a few young foxes from their den in the woods near Tignish, not far from Alberton, and sold them to one Benjamin Haywood. Haywood tried briefly to raise the young foxes in a shed adjoining his carriage house before turning them over to Dalton.

After some unsuccessful efforts to raise the foxes in cages in his barn, Dalton formed a partnership with his friend and hunting companion Oulton. Oulton would take care of the animals, while Dalton handled finance and marketing.

Oulton decided to try raising the foxes in a more natural environment; he fenced in a section of spruce and hardwood forest on his isolated Cherry (then Oulton) Island farm. By 1895, Oulton’s farm had produced several foxes, the first to be bred and raised to maturity in captivity.

As Oulton and Dalton worked to develop a consistent strain of silver-black foxes, they began selling the pelts of the animals they did not retain for breeding at the January sale of C.M. Lampson and Company, in London. They shipped the furs from a small PEI harbor in the dead of night, to keep their production secret, and for good reason: in 1900 they received $1,807 for a single fox pelt, an enormous sum at a time when an average Island farm worker could expect to earn $320 for a year’s work!

As production increased, it became impossible to keep their project secret, and in 1900 Dalton and Oulton expanded their partnership into the “Big Six Combine”, with several neighbours. The group pledged never to sell live animals outside the group, but their monopoly was broken in 1910 when the nephew of one of the partners, Frank F. Tuplin, sold two pairs of live silver foxes for $10,000.

During the fox boom that followed (1910-14), fortunes were made. In 1910 Dalton sold 25 pelts in London for more than $20,000. The commissioner of agriculture reported in 1914 that the 3,130 foxes raised on the Island’s 277 ranches had a value of $14 million – an average of almost $4,500 per pelt!

"Million-Dollar Train"

Dalton set up a new farm near Charlottetown, PEI, to supply the Charles Dalton Silver Black Fox Company Limited, a new venture for which he had received $400,000 in cash and $100,000 in shares, in 1912. The fast-growing fox industry was riding so high by then that the train carrying breeding stock from his farm in Tignish was dubbed the "Million-Dollar Train" in the local papers.

With the outbreak of World War One, however, Dalton must have felt that the “soft-gold” rush was peaking; he sold all his fur interests and devoted the rest of his life to politics and philanthropy.

He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1912 and 1915, where he served as minister without portfolio. He also donated generously to fund a tuberculosis sanitarium, schools and help for the Island’s poor.

In 1930, at the age of 80, Dalton was appointed lieutenant governor of Prince Edward Island, a position he held until his death in 1933.

Today, there are only a few small fox farms remaining on PEI. But the breeding stock and husbandry techniques developed by Dalton, Oulton and other founding members of PEI’s “Big Six Combine” were used to launch fox farming operations across North America, Europe and Asia.

One last personal note: one of the larger fox farms that my father visited in PEI back in the 1950s was in the tiny community of Birch Hill, just down the road from the farm where my daughter-in-law was raised. Little could he have known that, some 60 years later, his own son, grandson and great-grandchildren would be back in Birch Hill for a family reunion!

The author would like to thank the curators of the Alberton Museum for allowing us to reproduce photos from their wonderful collection. This charming museum is well worth a visit for anyone travelling to Prince Edward Island!

Ask most people what fur is good for and they’ll say it keeps the wearer – animal or human - warm. True enough, but some types of fur are so much warmer than others, and the reasons why may surprise you. In this first of a series to introduce some of the amazing facts about fur, we’ve planned a hunting and fishing trip and now it's time to plan our wardrobe. We’re headed to the Canadian territory of Nunavut, and we need to dress for the occasion!

Nunavut is actually the size of Western Europe, so even though almost the whole territory is classed as having a polar climate, there are considerable differences in weather and hours of sunlight. Time of year also makes a big difference. So let’s narrow it down and say we’re headed for the capital of Iqaluit at 63°N, in late March.

We’ll have about 6 hours of sunlight a day, enough for some good hunting or fishing close to home. But with average temperatures for March at -28°C, and a record low of -44°C, we can forget our birdspotter’s anorak. Heck, with wind chill factored in, the mercury once hit -62°C, so you might be tempted to leave your entire wardrobe at home, but don't. Jeans and sneakers will get a lot of use when we're not actually out on the land or ice.

It’s time to plan our new wardrobe and then figure out how to get it, because it's not going to be from your typical downtown furrier. Mink, fox or chinchilla are not up to the job, plus we'd prefer not to run up a huge cleaning bill on our return.

What we’re after is fur that’s full of holes.

Hollow Hairs Please

One of the key functions of fur in nature is thermoregulation: helping furbearers stay cool in hot weather and, more importantly, warm when it’s freezing. This is achieved primarily by means of insulation, and one of the greatest insulators is air. Or, to be more precise, trapped air.

Heat travels more slowly through air than through solids or liquids, (For comparison, water is 24 times more effective at conducting heat than air.) Furbearers take advantage of this by trapping air between the dense hairs of their underfur, then sealing it in with their long guard hairs. For us humans, it's a case of dressing in layers: two thin sweaters, with a layer of air between, keep us warmer than one thick one.

But some furbearers, mostly species of deer, have taken it to the next level. Not only do their guard hairs help trap air in the underfur, but those guard hairs also have air trapped permanently inside each one! Commonly known as “hollow” hairs, think more in terms of a honeycomb center, with countless tiny pockets of air. (Click here for an example of a scanning electron micrograph of red deer hairs.)

So we’re going to go with a local favourite in Nunavut, caribou fur.

Caribou must endure bitter cold for months at a time, and they don’t even shiver. How do they do it? It's not all in the fur; a highly efficient means of minimising heat loss known as countercurrent heat exchange functions in their legs and nasal passages. But the key is their winter coats, three inches thick and covering them from nose to hooves, all topped off with those hollow hairs. (Interestingly, it is also these hollow hairs that cause caribou to swim so high out of the water, further conserving heat.)

So we’ll start with a couple of knee-length parkas, not for alternate days but to wear as a pair if needed. The outer parka, worn on its own with the fur on the outside, will be for less cold weather or trips close to home when a sudden change in the weather just means a sprint home. The inner parka will be added, with the fur facing our body (yes, we'll need a shirt or other kind of lining!), when the mercury plummets or we're traveling farther afield.

Since we're not dressing to impress but looking for utilitarian wear, we'll go with plain parkas, not the decorated versions commonly associated with Inuit culture. Caribou hair sheds easily and the hollow shafts are constantly breaking, so decorated parkas are for special occasions only (and for sale to tourists).

And since it's not mid-winter, we'll go with summer caribou skins, which are also those generally used for garments. The hair is shorter than winter skins so they're not as warm, but this also makes them less prone to shedding. Summer skins are also easier to dress than winter skins, and while dressing is said to reduce warmth, it does make them more durable.

And if you're ready to go totally native, caribou pants and socks come next, both with the fur on the inside, then caribou mittens and kamik (traditional footwear) to round off your ensemble.

A word of caution though. Unless you're actually out on the land or ice, dressing head to toe in caribou will make you stand out from the crowd. Plus, propping up the bar in Iqaluit will very quickly cause you to overheat! That's where the jeans and sneakers come in.

Hydrophobic Hood

Before you shell out for your parkas, though, pay particular attention to their most important feature: the hood lining. It must be hydrophobic.

OK, we don’t literally want it to be “hydrophobic” or it would be scared of water. What we want is a strong “hydrophobic effect”, meaning it appears to repel water. (There is no actual repulsion involved, just an absence of attraction.)

The hydrophobic effect can be found everywhere and is essential to life on Earth. Observe a droplet of dew on a leaf. The water and the leaf want nothing to do with each other, to the point where the dew forms a sphere. The hydrophobic effect is also seen in all fur, but some types are more hydrophobic than others.

And why is a hydrophobic hood lining so important? Well, here’s what happens if you don’t have one. You’re out one day when a blizzard blows in and the temperature suddenly drops to -30°C. You pull up your hood with its big, fluffy synthetic lining and laugh at Mother Nature. Next thing you know, your breath is freezing on the lining which then freezes to your face. Lesson learned. You’ll never wear a synthetic hood lining again, at least not in the Arctic.

Better to do it right the first time and go with the ultimate in hydrophobic hood lining, wolverine fur. Since that is not always available, northern grey wolf makes an excellent second choice.

Nature’s Raincoat

But we also need a second outfit, still for time on the land, but for days when caribou will make us feel like a baked potato. The sky is clear and the forecast is for temperatures around freezing. There's a chance of rain and slush underfoot, so being waterproof is paramount. It's time for Nature’s raincoat, sealskin.

People from down south often assume sealskin must be the ultimate in cold-weather clothing, but it’s not the case, and that’s because the species used – mainly ringed seals, as in Nunavut, and harp seals – have no underfur. Sometimes known as "hair seals", their pelts are composed entirely of short, shiny guard hairs.

The "flat" fur that comes from hair seals is not as warm as "true" fur (with underfur), like caribou, but it has some real pluses. Because there is no underfur, sealskin is light. It is also incredibly durable, more so than any other flat fur like calf or antelope (which is why it's used to make rope). Its structure resists wind, its oil content repels rain, and its porosity allows it to breathe (which is why it also makes great tents).

And oh yes, it's virtually waterproof, which is why it's used to skin kayaks.

Sealskins, then, are the Arctic's warm, wet-weather clothing, "warm", of course, being a relative term. Mittens, a lighter parka, and most definitely sealskin boots therefore make it on to our shopping list.

Shopping Time

And now comes the hard part. It's so hard, in fact, that if you're planning a quick in-and-out visit to Nunavut, you're not going to be wearing caribou or ringed seal anyway, so just pack the best of the rest. Unfortunately, buying an outfit of traditional Nunavut clothing is, like hollow hairs and hydrophobia, amazing - amazingly hard!

Forget about buying outfits off the peg, in Iqaluit or anywhere else. It's not going to happen, though not for want of trying. Efforts have been made in Nunavut over the years to establish a garment industry with ensured availability from suppliers and standardised sizes and prices, but all to no end. The workforce with the necessary skills - older women, with kids to care for, working from home - have not taken to the idea of a production line.

So what to do? You can sign up for an expensive sport-hunting package and get the clothing, including a decorated parka made of dressed skins, thrown in. Finding someone to make it then becomes your tour operator's headache.

Or you turn up in Iqaluit, ask around, negotiate hard, and be prepared to pay $1,500+ for a plain caribou parka, pants, kamik and mittens - and that's summer skins, probably not dressed. If you're staying a month, it should be ready by the time you're heading home.

The good news is that Canadian harp seal garments can be bought on-line (here or here, for example), provided you don't live in a country that denies you the freedom to import them. Which brings us to the last amazing fact about seal fur.

Nonsensical Bans

Almost all sealskin garments come from healthy populations of either harp seals or ringed seals. So healthy are these populations that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies both harp and ringed seals as "Least Concern".

And yet two of the biggest potential markets for seal products, the US and the EU, are closed for no good reason.

SEE ALSO: EU SEALING POLICY IS HYPOCRITICAL, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC

The US has banned imports of all seal products since 1972 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, legislation that is fiercely defended by the nation's animal activist community.

In the EU, the ban went into effect in 2009, since when the European Commission has made a pig's ear of justifying it because it can't. Everyone knows the ban was passed not for any rational reason, or even to satisfy popular demand, but because it was bought and paid for by lobbyists in Brussels working for animal rights groups.

Now, true to their reputation for feeble-minded solutions (like the bendy banana law), Brussels' finest have sought to placate Canada's angry Inuit by exempting them from the ban. Not surprisingly, many Inuit representatives have called the gesture colonialistic and racist, so we'll see how that works out!

Truly, the politics of fur are no less amazing than the science and cultural traditions of this beautiful, warm and sustainable natural resource. Send us a postcard from Iqaluit!

The European Union recently announced that products made from seals hunted by Inuit people can continue to be sold in the EU despite the 2009 ban that prevents the importation or sale of all other seal products. It is impossible to imagine a sealing policy that would be more hypocritical and anti-democratic.

Canadian sealing is a sustainable use of a natural resource carried out by licensed, well-trained sealers under the rules and regulations of the government of Canada, which have been developed based upon both population science and humane killing techniques. In 1971 a quota management program was established for the Northwest Atlantic harp seal stock, and the population is estimated to have grown since then from 1.8 million to the 5.9 million, according to the IUCN. World-wide the population is close to 8 million, with "All known stocks ... increasing in number".

Despite the comments of the animal rights groups, the world-wide markets for seal products (food, Omega-3 fatty acids, oil, fur, leather) continue to exist. They exist but are inaccessible because the decades-old animal rights propaganda campaigns have co-opted (bought?) politicians in the EU, the USA, and other countries to deny their citizens their democratic right to choose to buy seal products.

Even in its stronghold of North America, surveys suggest the animal rights philosophy (i.e., no animal use) is adhered to by less than 3 percent of people. And because of this lack of popular support, animal rights groups can only further their agenda by using their multi-million-dollar war chests to lobby politicians to pass laws denying citizens their right of choice: anti-democratic to say the least. Like autocrats throughout history, it seems that these wealthy activist groups don't trust individual citizens to do "the right thing".

Hypocrisy Everywhere

The World Trade Organisation enquiry found that the “seal ban” was against its rules, but in the interest of protecting the “morals” of EU citizens the ban would stand: thus buying into the animal rights propaganda that killing seals is immoral. An interesting decision given that many countries within the EU continue to kill seals legally in the Baltic and North seas.

The USA continues to allow harvesting of northern fur seals in the Pribilof Islands, creating an exemption to its own Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), despite the fact that the IUCN lists the species as "vulnerable" and cautions that the Pribilof stock "has experienced a significant, steep decline in recent years." Yet it bans the importation of Canadian seal products under the same MMPA, despite the fact that the harp seals killed have never, ever been on any reputable list (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, for example) of endangered or threatened species. Hypocrisy reigns supreme.

SEE ALSO: 5 REASONS WHY I SUPPORT THE CANADIAN SEAL HUNT

Inuit "Exemption" Almost Racist

Animal rights groups constantly make pious, politically correct statements that they are not against Inuit sealing. For decades, Inuit organisations (including the Inuit Circumpolar Council, or ICC, which represents Northern Aboriginal communities around the world) has rejected this “exemption” as being meaningless, based in a colonialist mentality, and little short of racism.

Thousands of rural Canadian citizens are directly and indirectly employed in the sealing industry earning a living for their families. Sealing is part of an annual mosaic of income for rural Canadians whose money is derived from a number of individual activities that in total provide a livelihood that enables them to live in their communities. The same thing applies to Canadian farmers, ranchers, trappers, hunters, and so on: the only difference is the species killed. Few rural Canadians have the luxury of a guaranteed annual salary.

SEE ALSO: AMAZING FACTS ABOUT FUR: DRESSING FOR THE ARCTIC

Animal rights groups keep on about a “buyout” for those in the sealing industry. A one-year buyout? A two-year buyout? Or an annual buyout till all those involved have died? For whom? For sealers, plant workers, truckers, diesel suppliers, insurance agents, garment manufacturers, artists, artisans, grocery suppliers, gun and ammunition stores, vehicle sales people? For all or only some of them? Will they pay the many millions involved? No. These American-headquartered multi-million-dollar groups want the Canadian tax payer to subsidize their ridiculous views.

Resource Use Is Not Disneyland

"Baby seals"? The use of the word "baby" is simply an anthropomorphism, the Bambi syndrome, designed to influence and upset urban people who have a total disconnect with the sources of their food, clothing, medicines and other objects of daily use. The seals killed are fully weaned, are independent of their dames, and are on their own to survive or not: this is nature, not Bambi in Disneyland.

Death by gunshot or hakapik is instantaneous as found by innumerable studies by independent vets from Canada, the USA and the EU. The only negative studies have been bought and paid for by animal rights groups. The reality is that no animal-killing is pretty: it is by nature ugly. But pretty and ugly are not synonyms for right and wrong or good and bad. Sealing is simply an outdoor abattoir without the offal problems of land-based abattoirs (dumping it in landfills) because what we cannot use we leave on the ice to return to the eco-system as food for birds, marine mammals, fish and crustaceans: ecologically correct and green.

Travesty of Fiction Over Fact

The reality of the 50 years of animal rights propaganda has been the diminution of the incomes of thousands of Canadian citizens while these American-headquartered groups have collected hundreds of millions of dollars from people who think they are supporting animal care and conservation. One group alone generates contributions close to $100 million annually.

To adapt Winston Churchill's famous turn of phrase, never have so many been so misled by so few for such nefarious reasons. For decades these groups have said nothing new, yet their comments are deemed “newsworthy”. They and their celebrity friends utter ridiculous comments and no journalists challenge them. It's a circus, a travesty of fiction over fact, and proof that hypocrisy reigns supreme. It is media manipulation of the highest order.

Propaganda is an insidious thing and unless countered by a free press prepared to ask the hard questions it will continue ad infinitum. It is time for individuals, politicians and media to remember the immortal line of Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

The anti-sealing story is the second greatest propaganda campaign of the last 85 years. Democracy is about the right of citizens to choose. History has shown us that when propaganda triumphs, democracy loses.

Nobody in the Canadian sealing industry wants people to buy their products if they do not wish to. Canadian sealers only want all citizens to have their democratic right to choose for themselves to use or not use seal products.

Animal rights is not animal conservation or animal welfare. The goal of animal rights groups like the Humane Society of the US (and its extension, Humane Society International) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, to name but two, is not to end sealing but rather to end man’s use - not just killing, but any use - of all animals for any reason. Read their mission statements. Seals are the tactic not the goal.

Anti-sealing is the epitome of George Orwell’s position in Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

The animal rights anti-sealing movement may have won some battles but not the war. If it wins the war you will have to look around to see whom among you will be the next victim. The beef, pork, chicken or lamb producers? The trappers, hunters or fur farmers? The clothes manufacturer, shoemaker, auto manufacturer or furniture manufacturer? Anyone who uses animals for any purpose at all? You?

My life in the fur trade began as a teenager, back in 1968, with a summer job for a fur broker – a man who bought and sold fur pelts at wholesale. Although my family came from Greece (like many fur craftspeople), we were not furriers. But, like most immigrants, we were not wealthy and I needed to work to help ends meet. That first job changed my life; I had never imagined that such beautiful furs existed and I was hooked at first sight!

The owner took a liking to me, I guess, and taught me the ins and outs of examining, grading and buying fur pelts at the old Hudson’s Bay fur auction house that was in Montréal at that time. There was so much to discover and I was lucky to learn from the ground up: my understanding of how to judge different fur qualities would serve me well when I became a fur designer and manufacturer myself.

A few years later I was offered a job as a fur manufacturer’s sales representative, visiting retail fur shops across the continent with fur garment and accessory samples. Although it was difficult to leave my mentor, I wanted this opportunity to learn another part of the business. Because I had to work to make a living, I never had the opportunity to go to college or university. Work was my university.

One great advantage of my new job was that I had direct contact with fur stores and their customers. It didn’t take long before I understood that the traditional way fur coats were being made had not kept up with the times. Traditional coats were too bulky, too heavy. And there was an opportunity to use a wider range of furs than the few traditional staples (Persian lamb, muskrat, mink) that dominated the market. As retailers and suppliers began to have confidence in me, I decided it was time to create my own fur designs, incorporating my new ideas and made in my own atelier.

Family Affair

Two brothers and two sisters joined me in this exciting venture, and our company grew quickly. Soon I needed an associate, an expert furrier, to look after the production side, while I developed new designs and handled sales and public relations. I felt tremendous pride seeing my fur creations in some of the finest stores across North America. As we gained confidence, I showed our collection at the world’s largest fur fair at that time, in Frankfurt, Germany; we returned with orders from the fashion capitals of Europe, and as far away as Japan and South Korea.

It wasn’t always easy, of course – succeeding as a fur designer requires an impressive range of specialised knowledge and nerves of steel. For starters, unlike materials made in a factory, fur pelts are produced by nature and only available at certain times of the year. When the fur is prime, it is sold at auction. If you don’t buy then, you pay more to fur brokers (like my first boss), who make their living buying for others and keeping inventories for those who can’t afford to buy all the furs they may need during the year.

The tricky part is knowing which furs to buy, because you have to make samples before receiving any orders from the retailers. And you can’t take orders without having the furs to make them. If you bet wrong and don’t receive enough orders, how will you pay for the furs in your storeroom? But if you don’t have enough fur pelts in stock, you may have to pay more than expected to the fur broker, wiping out any hope of profit!

World's Lightest-Weight Beaver Pelts

You also have to know how to judge the quality of furs you buy. Our company became known for producing the finest Canadian sheared beaver coats and jackets in the world. Part of our success was weight: customers now want a lightweight garment, and I noticed that some beaver pelts were much lighter than others. It took me a while to understand that the lightest-weight furs came from Cree trappers in the James Bay region of Ontario and Quebec. One day, a Cree elder explained why.

After an animal is skinned, the leather side of the fur pelt must be scraped clean of any excess flesh or fat; the pelt is then stretched and dried before being sent to the auction. Most trappers do this work themselves, in a heated cabin or shed. Among the Cree, however, it is usually women who scrape the pelts, and they often do this work outdoors, in the cold Winter air, which makes it easier to remove all the fat. This makes their beaver pelts thinner and lighter weight, which was important traditionally because more pelts could be loaded into a freighter canoe. Today, their meticulous work still produces beautiful parchment-white leather and the lightest-weight beaver pelts in the world!

SEE ALSO: I'm an artisan designer: Fur and leather keep me warm

The Cree also helped me to understand one question that had bothered me: Why is nature so cruel as to decimate all beaver living in an area when populations get too dense? They explained that overpopulated beavers overwhelm their food supply; Tularemia and other diseases can then wipe out the malnourished animals. This is nature’s way to restore balance, because a devastated forest needs many years to regenerate. No regeneration would be possible, however, if beavers were still feasting on the tender, young aspen and willow saplings.

The beauty of well-regulated modern trapping is that the beaver populations can be maintained at stable and healthy levels, in balance with their environment, over long periods of time. That’s better for the beaver, better for the forest, and provides a beautiful natural clothing material to keep people warm in a sustainable way!

Caring vs. Knowing About Nature

I have lived my whole life in cities, but the fur trade taught me a lot about nature. We all care about nature, but “caring” without “knowing” is no use at all. Like aboriginal trappers, wildlife biologists spend years studying nature and how it works. Surely they know more about nature than self-appointed “animal-rights” activists. Paul McCartney and Brigitte Bardot may mean well, but they should probably stick to their music and acting ... and leave science to the scientists.

Socrates once said: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life and the world around us. Once we know that, we understand why it is so important to respect other people – to learn from one another – instead of trying to impose our own values on everyone.

So next time you see or wear fur, think about the beauty and wonder of nature. And think about the hard-working and knowledgeable men and women who harvested your fur, and the skilled hands that crafted this remarkable natural material into the most comfortable and luxurious clothing material in the world!

After some 30-odd years of tracking animal activists and speaking out for the fur trade (and some of those years were quite “odd” indeed!), I have learned two important things. First: we members of the fur family are very proud of who we are and what we do. Second: most of the public knows almost nothing about us; in fact, they have rarely heard from us at all!

Truth About Fur was created to address this serious shortcoming. When North American auction houses, trade and breeder associations met to plan this project, the first goal we identified was “to take back control of our own story”. We pledged to give a voice to the fur trade ... and to put a human face on our industry!

Fur Family Profiles

Why is it important to put “a human face” on the fur trade? Because it is easy for Joe Public to believe activist claims that trappers or farmers are cruel or irresponsible if they’ve never met one. It is much harder to believe such lies when they can see and hear real trappers and farmers speaking for themselves. That’s why the farmer and trapper video “profiles” are such an important part of our Truth About Fur website.

We can be proud that, in little more than a year, TruthAboutFur.com is making its mark. More than 12,000 people visited over the past few months, with 42% of traffic coming from the USA, 38% from Canada, and 20% international. Most important: journalists, consumers, political authorities, students and other researchers are now using our site.

Meanwhile our Facebook page recently topped 10,000 “likes”, and we're also active in a bunch of other social media: Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube.

Now it’s time to take Truth About Fur to another level, and for this we need your help! We are creating an on-line Fur Family Photo Album and we want your old and new pictures: Grandad’s first mink farm, a beautiful day on the trap-line, Aunt Eve sewing the lining into a new fur coat.

Our photo album will serve two main purposes. For members of the trade, the album will be a place where we can share the pride we all feel for what we do - and for the family members who, more often than not, blazed the trail for us. For the public, the album can help show who we really are - to break the caricature of “the evil trapper/farmer/furrier” that activists would like the public to believe.

Four Generations of Herscovicis

To start the ball rolling, I am happy to contribute two photos.

The first, above, shows my grandfather, Armand Herscovici, examining Persian Lamb skins in his manufacturing atelier, in the early 1950s. Armand came to Canada as a young man, in 1913. He had learned the art of the furrier from his own father, my great grandfather, in Paris, where the family settled after fleeing anti-Semitic violence (pogroms) in Romania. After the Second World War his son and my father, Jack, joined him in “A-J Herscovici Furs Ltd” - the company Jack proudly maintained until his retirement in 1992.

The second, below, shows my father visiting with me at the 2002 NAFFEM, the wonderful high-end North American fur show run for the benefit of the whole trade by the Canadian Fur Trade Development Institute (CFTDI) in Montreal for 30 years, until 2013. In 2014, it morphed into StyleLab-Montreal.

Now it’s your turn! We want your photos, and also the stories behind them. To learn how to send your photos and stories to be posted in our new on-line album, please go to Fur Family Album Submission Requirements.

Let’s show the world the true face of the North American fur trade!

As the cold weather settles in for another few months, I cuddle in my small country home on the Bay of Fundy. I put on my beaver house-boots and my wool sweater and thank Mother Nature for offering me all I need to keep us warm.

Living in a remote community on the Fundy shore, I am awed by the highest tides in the world. Surrounded by nature and silence, I bow to the sea which brings fish and clams to my table, and to the forests that supply firewood to keep my house cosy and wildlife to complement the seafood

My sewing skills make it possible to make clothing and accessories that will keep us comfortable.

Living in harmony with this environment, I relish a dream come true after fantasizing about it through all those years of living in some of the mega-cities of the world, a world surrounded by cement and pollution and so reinvented by humans that they can forget where they come from and who they are.

Real Meaning of Sustainability

I was introduced to fur design by professional furriers and artisans who put their skills at work to produce beautiful garments from a natural and renewable resource. Working in the Northern regions of our beautiful country, I’ve discovered the real meaning of sustainability of our natural resources.

I am thankful to the organizations who oversee good management and a respectful attitude toward our natural resources.

I am disappointed by negative and false information still spread by some organizations, sadly giving real environmentalism a bad name while imposing hardship on real people. At a time when “anti-bullying” and other forms of negative behavior are topics of public interest, we should wonder if this sentiment should perhaps apply here.

SEE ALSO: AMAZING FACTS ABOUT FUR: DRESSING FOR THE ARCTIC

Be Strong, Be Proud

While attending a recent event where I was able to display my creations, I was overwhelmed by the interest of people asking questions about the different furs in my booth, and reaching out to touch them. Often I heard the comment: “I am nervous about wearing furs ... someone might attack me on the street”.

I reply that they should be strong and be proud of wearing creations from the natural world. Every time I wear my fur coat, people come to me wanting to know what it’s made of and often comment on how beautiful it is.

Meanwhile, as I’m looking out the window at the ice moving with the tides, I am sewing and transforming a seal pelt from a vision into a beautiful garment.

We are the people of the fur trade and we will be silent no longer! That is the new rallying cry of our proud and historic trade, and it's long overdue.

It is hard to believe that the debate about fur has been raging for a full half-century – and a bit troubling to realize that I witnessed it all!

And while it is great to see all the fur on fashion runways and in the streets this winter, we still have a way to go to repair the damage caused by 50 years of activist lies, to reassure consumers that fur is produced responsibly and ethically.

Spotlight on Sealing

It was in March 1964, that a film on Radio-Canada, the French-language network of Canada’s public broadcaster, rocketed the northwest Atlantic seal hunt into the media spotlight for the first time. No matter that the shocking scenes of a live seal being poked by a sealer’s knife (“skinned alive”) would later prove to have been staged for the camera. (1)

In the 50 years that followed, the modus operandi of a lucrative new protest industry was refined: shocking images of questionable origin, celebrities to attract media attention, and emotional fund-raising campaigns that generated piles of money to drive more campaigns.

Markets for sealskins were weakened (with a US import ban in 1972 and a partial European ban in 1983), but the newly formed International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) was soon pulling in $6 million annually – more than 3,000 Canadian sealers made risking their lives on the ice floes each Spring. Greenpeace and other groups jumped onto the gravy train, with help from Brigitte Bardot. (2)

In the 1980s – with wild furs more popular than they had been since the Roaring Twenties – the protesters turned their newly-honed media, fund-raising and political skills against trapping (3), a campaign that resulted in the European Union banning jaw-type “leg-hold” traps, in 1997. No matter that traps used in Europe were untested or that other methods used there to control wildlife (e.g., poisoning muskrats in Belgium and the Netherlands) had far-reaching animal-welfare and environmental consequences. Canadian diplomats were told: “Don’t worry about your scientific studies, don’t you understand that this is about politics?”

While campaigns against sealing and trapping continue, the anti-fur focus has now shifted to calls for a ban on fur farming – but the tactics are the same.

Absent: Voice of the Fur Trade

Throughout this debate, one voice was conspicuously absent: the voice of the people whose livelihoods and reputations were being attacked. There are several reasons for this, including the imperatives of modern media, where confrontation is “news” and “celebrities” are irresistible. Hunters, trappers and farmers, moreover, do not live in cities where most journalists are based, so they are rarely heard.

The structure of the fur trade itself – small-scale, decentralized and artisanal – also made it difficult for the industry to muster an effective response. And it didn’t help that those closest to the media and consumers – retail furriers – have little knowledge of production issues. Asking a furrier about trapping standards makes about as much sense as asking a seafood chef to explain fisheries management policy.

All this is about to change. After 50 years of turning the other cheek, the fur trade is finally speaking out more effectively. Under the banner “Truth About Fur”, fur farmers, trappers, biologists and veterinarians are setting the record straight.

Animal Activists Scrambling

The reaction of animal activists is revealing. Used to having the soapbox to themselves, they are scrambling to block or discredit the industry’s voice. I have experienced this personally.

When we refute lies or misinformation on-line, it doesn’t take long before a cyber-bully tries to shut down discussion. Rather than risk having their dogmatic beliefs shaken by facts, they shoot the messenger. Typical attacks include: “He’s paid to write this, don’t listen to him!” “He’s a fur industry troll!” Recently I was called “a sock puppet”.

SEE ALSO: MINK LIBERATION : 5 FACTS THE ALF DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

I suppose it is better to be a sock puppet than a marionette, which would mean that someone was pulling my strings. But the bad news for these cyber-bullies is that we are not puppets. We are the people of the fur trade, and we will be silent no longer.

If the vicious lies and slanders leveled by activists against the fur trade for the past 50 years were directed at any other group in society, they would be denounced as hate crimes. It’s time that animal activists were exposed for what they are: intolerant bullies with little understanding of modern environmental thinking.

Aboriginal (or other) trappers do not need lessons about respecting nature from urban activists. Mink farmers do not need lessons about caring for animals from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA). The fur trade is not a crime against nature; it is a prime example of “the responsible and sustainable use of renewable natural resources”, a principle supported by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and every other environmental authority. These are some of the facts that are documented by Truth About Fur.

It is encouraging that close to 500 international designers now include fur in their collections, compared with only about 40 in the early 1990s. And it is wonderful to see people of all ages with coyote and fox trim on their parkas this winter. But it is especially satisfying to know that, whatever people choose to wear, the fur trade’s story is finally being told by the people who live it.

* * *

1) Alan Herscovici, Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1985; Stoddart Publishing, 1991), p. 74.

2) Herscovici, p. 70.

3) Herscovici, pp. 117-162.

When I started trapping in 1959, it was a lot easier than it is now. Oh, sure, there’s more information and better equipment available these days, but it’s a lot more difficult to actually start trapping today than it was a half century ago.

Urbanization is one reason. The population of the United States has shifted from predominantly rural to predominantly urban, and fewer kids (adults, too, for that matter) live close enough to trapping country to make it work. I was a town kid too, but it was a small town, and my bike could get me beyond the city limits in five minutes. That’s often not the case today, and even where it is, today’s world isn’t the one I grew up in. Turning a kid loose on a bicycle before daylight isn’t such a wise idea in many areas.

Also, there’s the change in public attitude about hunting, fishing and trapping in general. According to the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, in my home state of Arkansas, which is less urban than many, only 301,000 residents hunted that year. That’s about 12 percent of the population. Trapping is included with hunting, and I’d be very surprised if 5 percent of those 301,000 folks trapped, but for argument’s sake, let’s say they did. That gives us a total of 15,050 trappers in my state, at most. There’s probably considerably less.

The situation is much the same elsewhere. When the percentage of active trappers is that low, it’s hard for somebody who wants to learn more about trapping to find anyone with similar interests. And when you can’t find anyone who shares your interest in something, guess what usually happens? Yep, your interest wanes, too, because it’s not much fun unless you can share it with someone.

Some Are Rookies, Some Trapped When Younger

That’s where us gray-whiskered veterans come in. Thirty years ago, I didn’t really have time to take someone under my wing on the trapline. I was pedal to the metal from Day 1 to Day Last, catching as many animals as I possibly could, because I had a houseful of kids and a dollar bill looked as big as a saddle blanket. Simply put, I couldn’t afford to take the time to help a rookie get started.

But now that’s not the case. I’m far from rich, but the crushing financial pressure is gone, and for Bill and me, the trapline is a more leisurely thing. Don’t misunderstand though. We still work hard, and we put up decent numbers for a couple of geezers, but neither of us is out there because our kids need shoes. And so we take interested folks on our line from time to time. Some are rookies just getting started, some are middle-aged guys who trapped when they were younger, and some are men and women who’ve never held a trap in their hands but want to see what it’s all about.

SEE ALSO: ONTARIO TRAPPERS PROTECT PEOPLE AND PROPERTY

The days when we have guests on the line are among the most enjoyable of the season. We usually don’t get as much done, because we’re answering questions and showing our guests what we’re doing and why. It slows us down, but we both enjoy it and are more than glad to do it. We’ve never discussed it much, but I think the reason Bill and I both enjoy having guests is that we’re helping promote trapping to non-trappers, either by helping a newbie get started or by showing a non-trapper first-hand that we’re not the bloody-handed barbarians the PETA folks make us out to be.

If you’ve never taken a kid, a beginning trapper or an interested non-trapper on your line, I recommend it. Not only will you enjoy it, but you’ll also be helping the cause.

The TV news item was about the upcoming duck season, and the soundtrack in the background was a recording of somebody blowing a duck caller. The calling wasn’t bad, but what ruined it for me was the film clip they were running to illustrate duck hunting.

They were filming a flock of coots.

Unfortunately, that sort of stuff is pretty common on today’s television and movie programming. Pay attention, and you’ll see it all the time. I bet I’ve watched a dozen movies where they show a flock of cranes or ibises or some other species that flies in a V formation, accompanied by an overlaid soundtrack of - you guessed it - goose music.

Things like this are laughable, but they ought to also serve as warning flags. Every instance should remind us that not everyone is as knowledgeable about things outdoors as we are, and that simple but profound fact can (and often does) come back to bite us. In fact, the general lack of knowledge of the public about nature might well be the biggest problem we trappers, hunters and anglers face.

Sure, there are plenty of other things for us to worry about - loss of habitat to urban encroachment, shrinking access to public and private land, decreasing recruitment of young people into the outdoor lifestyle we know and love. But at the end of the day, none of those things will matter if our legal right to trap gets taken away at the ballot box.

And slowly but surely, that’s what’s happening. This year, for example, there was a petition drive in Montana to get an initiative on the November ballot prohibiting trapping on any public land in that state. (See Toby Walrath’s piece in the November 2013 issue of Trapper & Predator Caller for more on that.) They failed to get sufficient signatures this time, but if this thing passes in the future, more than a third of Montana would be closed to trapping.

Montana wouldn’t be the first state where it’s happened, either. It’s already against the law to trap on public land in Arizona and Colorado, and trappers have been so restricted and legislation-crippled in states like California, Florida, Massachusetts and New Jersey that I swear I can’t understand why any trapper would live there.

Coots Instead of Ducks, Cranes Instead of Geese

The reason this has happened, and the reason it continues to be a threat, goes right back to that coots instead of ducks, cranes instead of geese thing - a widespread lack of knowledge in the non-hunting, non-trapping public about all things wild. Most of these folks aren’t necessarily against hunting or trapping. They’re not anorexic, wild-eyed vegans. They eat meat just like we do. Nor are they stupid. They just have no interest in hunting or trapping. That’s all. And so they don’t bother to learn anything about it.

But they care about wildlife in an abstract, feel-good sort of way, and that’s why they’re susceptible to the exaggerations, half-truths and flat-out lies the zealots on the bunny-hugger side of the fence keep throwing at them. For example, it’s true what the anti’s say, that the lion does sometimes lay down with the lamb. But what the anti’s always forget to mention is that the reason the lion does so is so it can more comfortably eat the lamb.

It’s up to us to stop this brainwashing of the non-hunting, non-trapping public, and the most effective way to do it is personal communication. Every trapper has many friends and family members who don’t hunt or trap. These folks would be more inclined to believe us than they would be to believe some complete stranger telling them trapping and hunting are evil. However, they won’t get our side of the story unless we tell them.

Are you doing that with your friends and relatives? If so, thanks very much, and keep up the good work.

If you’re not, you’re part of the problem.

On a recent Saturday I attended a small trapper gathering and I must say I always walk away from these events having learned a great deal.

Most years the big take-away is learning about the habits and activities of various furbearers and man’s attempt to catch them. Honestly, you can tip your hat to the bowhunter who ends their season with a nice new mount for the wall, but I will always have more respect for the trapper who knows the ins and outs of his passion so much that he can fill a pickup load of beaver … or coyote … or some other crafty, wary species.

Indeed, in the outdoors world for my money the accomplished trapper is the real rockstar deserving the utmost respect. This person has to know his sport so well that he can predict that a critter will step on a few square inches of a trap pan in order to achieve success. Certainly I’m not discrediting the hunter in any way. Instead, if you’ve never been closely aligned with someone who traps to learn what it takes … you’re missing a truly wonderful outdoors experience, in my opinion.

Now, some might say trappers do it for the money. To that I would say GET REAL! The money? Oh, sure there’s the money element involved with preparing and selling furs, but very few trappers I know make much more money then they end up spending on supplies, on gas to run their line … not to mention the hard work involved with catching and putting up fur in preparation for auction.

I’ve been a recreational trapper since the age of 15 so I know what it takes. Commitment. Ambition. Discipline. Positive attitude. Those are just a few of the many qualities that go into a successful trapper. And while money can help motivate a person to get out of bed each morning to check the lines … it simply does not very often make a living for many people.

As I watched Leon Windschitl from the Minnesota Trappers Association give his demonstration showing the finer points of fur handling, it suddenly occurred to me how much work is involved with trapping. First off, there’s the work phase where you need to outsmart the animal. Specialized tools, techniques and tactics might work in some areas, but then not in others. There’s no guarantee for success in trapping, just like there isn’t in hunting or fishing.

Now, some trappers might stop right there and simply sell the animal in the carcass to the fur house. I’ll admit, this is what I often do because my process for skinning and preparing is not a streamlined operation. Others, however, realize the work is only beginning. Skinning the critter (depending on your skill level) might take five to ten minutes or more. Then comes the fleshing and stretching aspect … not to mention the combing and cleaning that is often necessary to make the fur look its best. Even the stretching and the drying demands time and lots of attention.

All in all that $30 raccoon is hardly easy or quick money for the trapper’s pocket. As a trapper, to do things the correct way takes lots of time, patience and effort often when weather conditions are less than ideal.

Especially this year. Preliminary fur markets are looking somewhat depressed so trappers will likely have less competition on their lines. That also means less money in the pocket when the seasons end. Indeed, this year when you see trappers out tending their traps realize how this year more than others the folks setting steel in the river ways and fence lines are doing it for a true love of the sport … and not for a means to get rich in the pocketbook.

Yes, I have a lot of respect for trappers and the sport of trapping. Always have and always will.

Two years ago I went to NAFFEM, a large fur trade show in Montreal. I was invited as a blogger, to check out the beautiful pieces and choose some of my favourite items for sale at the show. I am a huge supporter of the Canadian fur industry (read about my reasons here) but I’ve been less vocal about the seal hunt, primarily because I didn’t have enough information to make an informed opinion about it. Well, now I do, and I would like to share it with you because I think it is important.

1. Seals are a sustainable resource and are in abundance. We live in a world where resources have become an issue, and many of us are choosing to consume products that come from renewable resources. Seal is a great example of this – there are tons of them in Canada and they are not at all at threat of becoming endangered.

Speaking of sustainability, seals are part of the reason why fish stocks are very low (although overfishing is also a big issue) and the seal hunt not only provides jobs and resources for the hunters, but also allows the fish populations to regenerate (a bit.) All major conservation groups will agree that a responsible use of resources (like hunting seals for food and clothing) is a good thing, and is often the central principle of modern conservation.

2. Seals are local. The green topic is a big one right now, and part of the green movement focuses on buying local.

Canada has a lot of great resources, but when it comes to fashion, few are 100% Canadian. Nearly all of our fashion products are in some way sourced from overseas (whether it be raw materials or construction) but seal skin and wild fur are 100% free range, local products.

3. The seal hunt supports Canadian communities. There are two major seal hunts in Canada, one in the Arctic sea (seals hunted by Inuit people) and one on the East Coast (a commercial seal hunt.) Both provide jobs and resources for those people. The meat is eaten, the fat is used for a variety of products, and the skin is sold so that these people can support themselves.

Food, as you may know, is extremely expensive in the Arctic, and there are limited jobs in that area, or in the Maritimes. The seal hunt is a very important Canadian industry for the people who depend on it.

4. The seal hunt is not inhumane. The animal rights activists will have you believe that the seal hunt is inhumane, but this is not the case.

First of all, most seals are killed with rifles (not clubbed to death.)

Secondly, there have been numerous studies done on the seal hunt, and biologists and veterinarians have all agreed that the seal hunt is no less humane than any other hunt.

SEE ALSO: EU SEALING POLICY IS HYPOCRITICAL, UNDEMOCRATIC

5. The media paints an unfair picture. My question, after having learnt all the above, was why does the seal hunt have such a bad reputation? There are two answers to this.

First of all, seals are cute, and people are more likely to be protective of cute animals. If we were all truly concerned about cruelty and sustainability, why aren’t we doing more to save fish? Many species of fish are far more at risk than seals, yet their not-so-cute appearance doesn’t exactly inspire people to campaign for them. (Notice how we care more that our tuna is “dolphin safe” but not so much if that particular tuna is endangered.)

Secondly, the seal hunt is much more visible than other hunts, and the access to it allows for more imagery. The seal hunt happens in certain places at very specific times, and so it is very easy for activists to turn up and take photos of blood on the ice. Those same activists aren’t invited into abattoirs, and therefore we don’t have the same images in our head of cows or sheep. The fact that seals are cute, and that we have access to photos of them being killed, means the seal hunt has been very unfairly portrayed by the media and activist groups.

Many of us are so far removed from nature, farming, and hunting, and it is so easy to forget that our food comes from the land. While I will admit I don’t like seeing photos of any dead animals, I do appreciate the process and am under no illusions about the realities of eating meat and wearing animal products.

For those of us who do choose to consume animals, the best we can do is consume sustainable resources that are treated humanely – and the seal hunt is just that.