Sunday, February 11, 2007
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Maine Furbearers and Small Game Mammals:
http://tinyurl.com/yvhfjl
Hunting and Trapping in Maine:
http://tinyurl.com/38ufuz
Pelt Tagging Records:
http://tinyurl.com/3d7nvr Maine Mammal Information:
BEAVER
Trapped: According to the latest data from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, 10,887 beaver pelts were tagged in 2005. Reports from the field have beaver pelts currently selling at about $35 a piece.
Features: Largest rodent, flat scaly tail, large front teeth; sexes indistinguishable
Weight: 45-60 lbs
Habitat: Rivers, streams, marshes, lakes, ponds
Food: Vegetation, tree twigs, water plants
Litter size: 4-5
Behavior: Nocturnal; cuts trees, builds lodges and dams
MARTEN
Trapped: 3,871 marten pelts were tagged in 2005. Reports from the field have marten pelts currently selling at $75 a piece.
Features: Dark brown to blond fur, pointed snout, small ears
Weight: 1-4 lbs
Habitat: Soft wood dominated mixed forests
Food: Small mammals, small birds and their eggs, insects, fruits, frogs
Litter size: 3-4
Behavior: Active day and night
MINK
Trapped: 1,105 milk pelts were tagged in 2005.
Features: Sleek body, short legs, soft dark fur
Weight: 2-4 lbs
Habitat: Rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds and marshes
Food: Small animals, birds, fish, snakes, frogs
Litter size: 3-6
Behavior: Nocturnal; most of its time spent hunting
RACCOON
Trapped: The state did not have pelt numbers for Raccoon.
Features: Brown fur, black mask, long ringed tail
Weight: 12-48 lbs
Habitat: Wetlands, some developed areas
Food: Prefers sweet foods, fruit, nuts, bird eggs, insects, frogs
Litter size: 4-5
Behavior: Nocturnal and solitary
Compiled by staff researcher Beth Murphy
http://tinyurl.com/yvhfjl
Hunting and Trapping in Maine:
http://tinyurl.com/38ufuz
Pelt Tagging Records:
http://tinyurl.com/3d7nvr Maine Mammal Information:
BEAVER
Trapped: According to the latest data from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, 10,887 beaver pelts were tagged in 2005. Reports from the field have beaver pelts currently selling at about $35 a piece.
Features: Largest rodent, flat scaly tail, large front teeth; sexes indistinguishable
Weight: 45-60 lbs
Habitat: Rivers, streams, marshes, lakes, ponds
Food: Vegetation, tree twigs, water plants
Litter size: 4-5
Behavior: Nocturnal; cuts trees, builds lodges and dams
MARTEN
Trapped: 3,871 marten pelts were tagged in 2005. Reports from the field have marten pelts currently selling at $75 a piece.
Features: Dark brown to blond fur, pointed snout, small ears
Weight: 1-4 lbs
Habitat: Soft wood dominated mixed forests
Food: Small mammals, small birds and their eggs, insects, fruits, frogs
Litter size: 3-4
Behavior: Active day and night
MINK
Trapped: 1,105 milk pelts were tagged in 2005.
Features: Sleek body, short legs, soft dark fur
Weight: 2-4 lbs
Habitat: Rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds and marshes
Food: Small animals, birds, fish, snakes, frogs
Litter size: 3-6
Behavior: Nocturnal; most of its time spent hunting
RACCOON
Trapped: The state did not have pelt numbers for Raccoon.
Features: Brown fur, black mask, long ringed tail
Weight: 12-48 lbs
Habitat: Wetlands, some developed areas
Food: Prefers sweet foods, fruit, nuts, bird eggs, insects, frogs
Litter size: 4-5
Behavior: Nocturnal and solitary
Compiled by staff researcher Beth Murphy
Source: Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife
ALFRED - Jay Stott chiseled out a hole in the ice and skimmed off the floating chunks. He knelt down and squinted into the underwater world of the middle branch of the Mousam River. There he could see his trap, still unsprung, positioned on the sandy bottom.
He moved to his next trap, this one a little closer to the beaver. Cupping his face with his gloved hands to block his own reflection, he peered into the water.
"We've got a beaver!" he exclaimed and pulled up his catch, a drowned juvenile, which had been held under the ice by a body-gripper trap.
Once skinned and fleshed, the undersized beaver pelt will be sold at auction in Wells next month, netting Stott maybe $15. The pelt may eventually make its way to a garment factory in Russia or China or a fashion house in Europe. The fur industry has been a global one in Maine ever since the first French fur traders arrived more than four centuries ago.
There is a worldwide market of about $13 billion for fur, but those who trap in Maine these days do so more as a sometimes lucrative hobby rather than as a profession. And while Maine furs have always traveled the world, today's global economy has impacted the sector in ways that are often unpredictable.
For instance, to understand fur's global reach, consider what has happened to the price of otter, which in recent years has been a profitable furbearer for Maine's 2,300 trappers.
Many otter pelts end up in Tibet, the world's top consumer of otter. But the Dali Lama recently condemned the use of skins from endangered animals, like tigers, and the Chinese government responded by clamping down on the importing of pelts of endangered animals. Somehow, Chinese bureaucrats lumped North America's river otters, which are plentiful, in the same category as sea otters, which are protected in the U.S. under the Endangered Species Act.
As a result, Tibet is no longer buying otter, and the price that a Maine trapper can get for his otter pelt has fallen from more than $100 to around $50 and is expected to tumble further. The North American Fur Auctions in Toronto, where many Maine pelts are sold, is selling off its entire inventory of otter pelts at its auction this week, and it is telling trappers to cut back on harvesting otter until it develops new markets.
But Maine trappers are not whining much about the dwindling value of their otter pelts; they are used to wild swings in the fur market. Besides, because of the broader reach of the fashion industry and soaring demand for fur, particularly in China, Russia, Greece and Turkey, prices are up for beaver and most other furbearers found in Maine - bobcat, fisher, marten, mink, coyote, muskrat, raccoon, red fox and gray fox.
Trappers this year appear to be busier than usual, working more often and putting out more traps, said Edith Cronk of Cronk's Outdoor Supplies in Wiscasset. Besides supplying trappers with traps and lures, Cronk's is also an agent for North American Fur Auctions. Three times a year, in December, January and March, Cronk's ships trailer trucks packed with raw fur pelts to Toronto. Cronk said trappers are bringing her more beaver, which is by far Maine's top pelt.
"It's a very good year," she said. "The trappers have more interest, and they have to have more equipment."
FEW FULL-TIME TRAPPERS
Still, what qualifies as a good year in this century would drive a trapper to drink in the last.
Fox pelts are a good example. In the 1930s, one nice fox pelt would fetch as much money as one could make working for three weeks at the local mill, said Dana Johnson, president of the Maine Trappers Association. Today, a fox pelt sells for around $25, about as much as someone could make in an hour or two at a regular job, he said.
Johnson said economics have turned the trade into an income-producing hobby, as opposed to a profession. There are hardly any full-time trappers left.
Most are like Stott, holding down 9-to-5 jobs and trapping on weekends and vacations.
On a recent Saturday morning, Stott worked for two hours to check seven traps he had set under the ice. (He had taken about an hour and a half to set them the previous week). All he had to show for his effort was one small beaver, which he dragged back home on his 11-year-old daughter's plastic sled. He later spent another 45 minutes skinning it, removing the fat and stretching it on a board. He cut the meat up and stored it in the freezer, to be used as bait next year for coyote or fisher.
"It's a lot of work for what you get out of it, really," he said.
Stott spends his work week assembling clean air units for a Sanford manufacturer. Trapping adds a few hundred dollars to his family's annual income. He mainly does it, he said, because he enjoys the challenge of trying to outsmart beavers. He also likes to outsmart other trappers by positioning his traps in such a way so that beavers will go to his traps and not theirs.
Lucky for him, beavers are creatures of habit. Under the ice, they travel on the river bottom, creating runways that are usually clear of bottom debris due to their constant use. They have the appearance of a narrow trough.
Stott sets a body-grip trap called a "Conibear" in the trough. The trap consists of two hinged metal rectangles that snap together when the beaver swims through the middle and bumps the trigger.
Stott sometimes catches beavers with a snare, using a poplar branch as bait. When there is no ice, he sets a foothold trap on the river edge and uses scent as bait. To escape, the beaver dives to the river bottom, dragging the trap down with it on a slide wire. The wire locks in place at the bottom, preventing the beaver from returning to the surface, drowning it.
Three years ago in Lebanon, somebody removed all his traps and threw them on top of a beaver house.
"People are strange," he said. "Not everybody agrees with what you're doing."
The state regulates trapping through season lengths and limits to prevent overharvesting. Before they can obtain a license, trappers must take a course on ethics, laws, safety and humane methods.
The beaver season in York County extends from Dec. 15 to Feb. 28. The season is longer in the north. The season for other furbearers begins in October and ends Dec. 31.
Last year, trappers caught 10,887 beavers, which is more than all eight other regulated furbearers combined. Because of the damage that beavers do, like washing out roads, biologists adjust the trapping seasons to keep the populations under control. The one species that biologists are concerned about is fisher because harvests have declined four years in a row, and some biologists believe they may have been over-trapped in the past.
FUR IN FASHION
Maine is known for the high quality and diversity of its furbearers, said Bob McQuay, executive director of the Wild Fur Shippers Council at the North American Fur Auction in Toronto.
Many of the pelts from animals caught in Maine this winter will be sold this week at the Toronto auction, the world's third largest. Until 1987, the auction was part of the Hudson's Bay Company, which was founded in 1670 and controlled the fur trade throughout much of North America for several centuries.
Although proud of their heritage, Maine trappers worry a lot about what the public thinks about their work and for good reason.
Animal protection groups four years ago used the Endangered Species Act to force the state to suspend its controversial coyote snaring program. Last fall, the California-based Animal Protection Institute filed a lawsuit seeking to end trapping that could inadvertently capture, injure or kill eagles, lynx and gray wolves, all of which are protected under federal law. If successful, the lawsuit could end some or all trapping in much of Maine, according to officials at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
Animal-rights activists have had less success dampening consumer demand for fur. Despite years of protest by animal-rights activists, the fashion industry is embracing fur in part because innovations in manufacturing, such as laser cutting and micro-shearing, have allowed designers to create products that appeal to a much broader range of consumers.
Sales of fur and fur trim in the United States totaled $1.82 billion in 2005, an increase of 82 percent from 1991, the year that fur prices last hit bottom.
This year, the price of farmed-raised mink is at an all-time high, around $60.
The high price of mink, the gold standard of the fashion industry, in turn raises the price of most wild fur, Mackowski said.
Adult beaver pelts have climbed from around $25 to around $35 each. Muskrat pelts, worth $2.50 a year ago, are now worth $8, Trappers are getting as much as $75 for marten, said Gary Sewell, a veteran trapper in Monticello. He said he has never seen marten selling for more than $45.
When fur prices rise, trappers historically set out more traps, said Bill Mackowski, a Milford trapper and chairman of the Wild Fur Shippers Council, which represents 7,000 trappers in the U.S. and Canada and is part-owner of the North American Fur Auction.
That still holds true to a certain extent, he said. But as trapping has become less of a business and more of a sport, trappers have become less influenced by the market.
"Everybody likes to talk about the money," he said. "But the vast majority of guys I know would go trapping anyway. It isn't about the money. It's about the experience."
Stott, for example, doesn't ship his fur to the Toronto auction, even though he figures he could get more money for it there.
He planned to sell his fur on March 10 at an auction at the Elk's Lodge in Wells. Four or five buyers from the Northeast will be there to examine the fur, which will be spread out on tables, and place their bids in sealed envelopes.
Stott said he enjoys the camaraderie of other trappers and hearing what the buyers have to say about pelts. He said he also wants to support the "country fur buyers," dealers who travel within a region buying fur directly from trappers.
"We want to keep the traditions of trapping alive," he said.
Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:
tbell@pressherald.com
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