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Conspicuous fauna of the forest are the traditional game and fish species and colorful, noisy birds. Much less conspicuous or abundant, and probably of equal monetary importance are the fauna with skins that can be used for hides and pelts. Called furbearers, these animals have received only a small percentage of the attention given in research and management to game species. Frank Ashbrook (1935), principal biologist in charge of fur resources, U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) said in 1935 of the fur animals that "this tremendously valuable natural resource is being constantly neglected and shoved into the background and still remains the stepchild in the family of conservation." He observed that at that time the annual income from the resource to trappers was 65 million dollars and "...deserves more attention than it is now receiving." The same opinion was expressed in Sanderson's book (1982).
The scope of the fur industry in the U.S. is estimated, grossly, to amount to over two billion dollars. In these terms alone, the fur resource is substantial and deserves major, sophisticated, managerial attention. The enterprise is not well developed, inefficient, victimized by fluctuating clothing styles, and is in conflict with a group of people opposed to trapping. Active management is now conducted by only one or several biologists in each state, and that activity is largely an information-gathering and harvest monitoring activity.
In 1992 the European Council of Ministers, for the 12 country European Economic Community (EEC) adopted the Wild Fur Regulation to take effect in 1995. With this stroke of the pen, said Bhat and White (1992), the EEC may have accomplished "...goals which U.S. animal rights activists have struggled unsuccessfully for years to achieve." The regulation bans fur imports originating from countries which fail to stop foothold trapping, and which fail to adopt international humane trapping standards. This virtually closed the major U.S. and Canadian market where 70% of furs are sold. The foothold trap is used to take 60% of furs. When it is banned, trappers stop trapping. The regulation, a superior example of a macro-scale managerial factor, will create hardships for suppliers, dealers, buyers, and other fur industry employees.
Practical, cost-effective trapping methods may be devised and this needs to be encouraged. Another strategy, of course, may be to attempt to create alternative markets to replace the one lost. Without markets, the concept of a fur resource is of little but historic interest.
Increasingly, because of fur market changes, inflation, shifts in unemployment, great land use change, and dynamic changes in public interest in and attitudes toward the faunal resource, the needs for fur-related systems are becoming more conspicuous. In some areas, there are concerns for trapping and for humane treatment of animals; in other areas, interests center on maintaining national historical roots; in other areas there are concerns for stable employment; in other areas, the concerns are entirely monetary - harvesting wild fur for individual profit and enhancing a region's economy. In some areas furbearers are pests of predators and trapping is for bounties or damage control. In some areas, furs represent the only means by which any significant monetary return can be gained from wild lands. This chapter presents the concept of a fur-related system and the potential yields for a forest if that system is well managed. State wildlife agencies have, for many years, been considering furbearers as "non-game" and have left this valuable resource in the backwaters of wildlife management. This is not an appeal for state agencies to do more but to identify a realm for profitable personal and corporate activity. Instead of "managing furbearers," a criterionless activity, emphasis can be placed upon total system output and primarily upon profit.
It is fitting in the context of systems descriptions herein, especially that of the wild turkey guild (Chapter 15) to consider the ramifications of a shift from a low-key public activity to a full-scale, private, fur-for-profit enterprise. Even if such an enterprise never exists, and I know of none, the process of thinking through its potentials may suggest changes that will be judged to be improvements in the present activities.
The concepts presented here are already in operation in some form and thus are not new. The fur-related system is not imaginary, something dreamed or requiring massive breakthroughs in science or technology. The re-arrangement and synthesis, I believe, is new and deserves discussion and action.
"Furbearers" is an artificial grouping of animals, unsuitable for faunal system managers. It implies all animals having potential commercial pelts. There are too many species of too many types for the word to be useful or meaningful for management.
I emphasize a fur-related system because there are many benefits that can be derived from populations of the animals listed in Table 12.1.
| Table 12.1 Alphabetical list of major furbearers of the U.S.and Canada, with their scientific names. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number | Common Name | Scientific Name |
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 |
Badger
Bear, Black Bear Grizzly Bear Polar Beaver Bobcat Cougar Coyote Fisher Fox, arctic and blue Fox, gray Fox, red Lynx Mink Marten Muskrat Nutria Opossum Otter, river Raccoon Seal, hair Phocidae (6 species) Skunk, spotted Skunk, striped Squirrel, gray Squirrel, red Weasel, least Weasel, longtailed Weasel, shorttailed Wolf, gray Wolverine |
Taxidea taxus
Ursus americanus Ursus horribilis Ursus maritimus Castor canadensis Lynx rufus Felix concolor Canis latrans Martes pennanti Alopex lagopus Urocyon cinereoargenteus Vulpes fulva Lynx canadensis Mustela vison Martes americana Ondatra zibethica Myocaster coypus Didelphis marsupialis Lutra canadensis Procyon lotor Spilogale putorius Mephitis mephitis Sciurus carolinensis Tamiasciurus hudsonicus Mustela nivalis Mustela frenata Mustela erminea Canis lupus Gulo luscus |
| Note: Deer, rabbits, and hares are omitted but their pelts are sold in some areas. I suggest including reptile hides within the system, since they may be produced in semi-domestic conditions in tropical areas. | ||
While some aspects of the larger enterprise or system may be strongly fur-related (e.g., tanning operations), others are weakly related (e.g., the fox-hunting enterprise, the fox being an object of a hunt, not necessarily captured for fur.) The creation and management of a fur-related system seems in order. It will not be easy. There are risks and no guarantees of success. Selection of easy, narrowly defined, low-risk work by people involved with faunal management has resulted in the current level of management. That, it seems to me, can be changed. It is needed for profits and benefits for people from the resource. It can result in much more intensive, high-quality management of the resource. Then it will be done for good reason, not merely "...because it ought to be!"
Objectives
A Type-1 objective of a fur-related system is to create a highly effective system for protecting fur-related wildlife and producing utility from that resource for the people of a state, province, or region. Lower level objectives can then be advanced. It is essential to avoid jumping to action programs that sound like objectives such as "To teach 50% of the students in high schools 50% of the content in System Publication X." This, when carried out, is a means to an end. These ends are in Table 12.2. Focusing on problems, available methods or past programs, like traps themselves, can seize manager's minds and prevent them from reaching their creative potentials.
| Table 12.2. A list of suggested Type-4 objectives for state-level fur-related system. |
|
The objectives in Table 12.2 can be in conflict. Weights and the other dimensions of objectives as discussed in Chapter 4, when assigned to each, can allow trade-offs to be made. There are many subtle dimensions to the above 12 objectives. In one sense they put the manager in a very tight box; once decided upon there is not much decision space for actions. Objective 1 encourages a large harvest, No. 4 establishes a lower limit; Nos. 5 and 6 set functional limits and probably encourage more population-directed work in some regions, more livestock protection in others. Objective 1 and 12 look out for the state and the welfare of all of the people; Nos. 2 and 3 relate to trapping businesses and to individuals who depend on the resource for livelihood.
Objective 11 recognizes that there are people who do not count real returns or costs and that trapping is considered by some to be a form of recreation. Opportunity-time for recreation, not support for or opposition to trapping, is the system objective for these people. This relates well to Nos. 9 and 12, objectives that are said to be anti-trapping. While questionnaires are conspicuous ways to achieve the index to how well objectives 9 and 12 are achieved, new composite indices from yet unperceived sources or methods may become available.
Objective 8 is an example of an area of major conflict. Serious efforts to achieve this one, out of the context of the larger set of objectives, would probably result in near elimination of trapping and the extermination of certain species (e.g., because of animals that transmit rabies.) Trade-offs need to be made (and are by the system processes) to achieve a reasonable balance between monetary rewards and health risks.
Some students of these objectives have complained mightily about their complexity. Every trapper may not need to understand the full dimensions of each objective or the set. These are for sophisticated wildlife agencies and enterprises and most of them will require computer data-bases and programs to compute-each index. Not described herein, but known to most managers in agencies, is that these objectives are weighted by decision-maker groups often called wildlife commissions. A level of risk is also assigned each, i.e., an estimate of the consequences of failure to achieve the objective. Time horizons are also established, and in some cases quotas or demand levels are stated. (See Chapter 4.)
Not to be forgotten is another layer of apparent complexity to the objectives component of the system. These are lower-type objectives, also called policy or performance criteria, and are general answers to "how well?" and "subject to what constraints?" These are:
Yet-lower-type objectives, also called action goals or program and project objectives, are the "means" to the primary objectives which are the "ends." The actions need to be created, adopted, and discarded rapidly when they fail in tests for effectiveness in making gains at low costs.
Improving profits (Objective 2) might be approached by a program with an objective of:
Improving value attached to the resource can be achieved with an objective directed toward:
Reducing disease (Objective 8) might be engaged with lower-order objectives of:
Improving net public satisfaction (Objective 11) might be achieved with objectives of:
Major Dimensions of the System
Nowhere, to my knowledge, is articulated the full potential of the faunal resource related to fur. Potentials need to be considered; the other need is for full-scale marketing. The commodities and dimensions of the enterprise include:
To maximize fur profits, K, from a forest (assuming this is the only objective and the only objective selected from those presented) then the manager plans for the annual harvest. Costs, C, are tallied (including vehicle purchase, years of use and depreciation and proportionate use, CAP118); vehicle insurance, vehicle mileage (miles/day x days); other vehicle annual costs; equipment of all types including traps, lights, snowshoes, boots (proportionate use), shovels, pan covers, etc.; travel to sales; lease fees; licenses; magazines or books; equivalent wages if otherwise employed (the trapper needs to consider "paying him or herself" for the time spent); and other costs including banking an emergency contingency fund.
The average estimated sales value for each type pelt needs to be computed. This can be done by simple regression (using CAP110) and relating prices to years, or price to price-in-the-previous-year. Such local and national data are fairly readily available. An alternative is to do three separate analyses using highest, lowest, and medium price within a reasonable period. It is useful to adjust such data for inflation. This is Mi (read as " M sub i ").
Total harvest is a record that needs to be collected. Experts can make estimates to allow a start, then records can be kept.
The number of trappers (customers, clients, or employees) for the forest manager need to be estimated. Equations can be developed based on fur prices in the previous year or two. Conflicting data from studies suggest that there is a core of trappers that will trap regardless of fur prices or animal populations. The analyst seeking to develop predictive equations needs to use multiple regression and to seek assistance for analyzing non-linear analyses.
Trapping periods, J, are constrained by legal seasons. Within this a proportion, L, is available, depending on local weather (usually affecting access). Within this period (H total trap hours), there may be placed Ti total traps for the ith species. There may be Ai trappers working to get the ith species. Some trappers work for only one; others select several. Each ith trapper has a relative efficiency, Bi, that is a function of age, experience, personal study, attendance at trapper schools, or work with experts (years in which a license was purchased is a measure but a very large number buy licenses but never trap. The purchase appears to be of an option to trap, a contribution to the cause, or failure may be due to sickness, etc.).
There is a portion of the human population in a region that might trap. This can be determined from census data and is based on local trapper characteristics of sex, age, race, socioeconomic group and whether physically able to trap or not. The proportion of this potential pool can be estimated each year based on license sales. Questionnaires with license purchase information may provide rough expressions of animals which are intended to be trapped yielding, Pi, the proportion of the total population, P, of the region that is likely to seek the ith species. This is a basis for estimating Ai over time.
Questionnaires will usually yield a good estimate of the actual days and hours spent trapping. Adjusted for weather and season length, I suspect this is fairly constant but will express both weather conditions as well as animal density. Trappers will drop out more quickly in years when returns on effort spent are small.
Trappers can be required to obtain an official tag or seal for all pelts, thus detailed records on harvests can be gained. (Surprisingly such records are kept in only a few states on only a few key species.) Thus, Bi, the number per trapper per hour, can be estimated.
Each pelt for the ith species has a lower sale price, Di. Depending on size, quality, primeness, etc., the price varies. It may be Di or increased by Ei. Different buyers in the same market offer quite different prices for the same pelt.
Fi is a coefficient expressing whether Ei will increase or decrease depending on whether the pelt is sold individually or in a group of furs of the same species. (Mixed lots are not discussed here.) Fi may be a marketing strategy, a buyer's condition based on some demand, or a function of the availability of furs in a particular year.
Gi is the proportionate change in the habitat area of the species. When 1.0, there is no change.
Hi is the proportionate change in the quality of areas identified as Gi. C is the cost of the total operation; they cannot be readily decomposed as for "returns."
The likely results of a trapping program may be described as:
K = ( SUM over all counts, i=1 to n, the product of JLH ti p Pi Bi Di Ei Fi Gi Hi ) - C
based on the above descriptions. Maximizing K is the manager's objective. CAP15 allows some experimentation with the concept for a single species. The clear message in the analysis of K is that the system is very complex, has many dimensions, and that a manager may work with one part of the system (such as habitat quality for species i) or with many parts simultaneously. The optimum strategy is difficult to determine and will usually require computer analyses - if for no other reason than to reduce the tedium of the calculations for 4 to 10 species on a large area. Interest rates in discounting investments can have as much influence on margins of profits from long-range habitat investments as can shifts in pelt prices. Analyses of the whole system are needed to allow wise decisions about the future system. After the trapping system is mastered, then the entire fur-related system can be optimized.
Input Systems
A comprehensive modern wildlife information system and knowledge base is needed. Such systems exist in 30 states of the U.S. A system, itself, can be a service or a marketable commodity for one or more enterprises in a fur-related system. It may include:
 |
| Sex and age of muskrats can be determined from stretched raw pelts. Left to right: adult female, adult male, immature female, immature male.The blotchy pattern is typical of adults. Immatures show blocks of color ventrally. Teat marks are visible in adult and immature females; males show no such marks.(from A.F.Linde 1963) |
This is not an exhaustive list but one that includes the primary needs. In some areas, one or more of these already exists. The list is presented partially as a means to compare current work with that which is possible. With these items, an effective system can be operated, but equally important are processes.
Processes
There are many processes that can be employed to achieve the objectives. Some are evident among the inputs. The management activity selection techniques (MAST) package (Lobdell 1972) operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can provide the fundamental computer optimization for allocating funds for management. It assesses demand, relates that to production, and then evaluates how to produce populations that will match up well with demand, given a limited budget.
A people-oriented analytical system is needed to assess who are the trappers, why they are in the business, what it takes to entice them or cause them to drop out, how to predict fur price change on trapping pressure, how large a project to develop to meet demands, and what long-term changes occur that may improve predictions for season setting, license costs, area designations, and other management.
A computer simulator is needed for each area with similar laws so that questions can be asked like "what if management area 60 is closed to trapping this year?" It would show potential consequences, particularly changes in how well objectives 1 through 6 were achieved.
Field tactics and strategies to be employed in achieving the objectives vary greatly by area, agency, manager, and year. See Novak et al. (1987). These might be selected from the following (based on objectives and costs):
Many of the objections to trapping can be solved by separating resource users in time and space, or by using permits or licenses to separate their activities. Other objections can be reduced by efforts at inconspicuous trapping, increased selectivity of animals, protection of sets from dogs, work with dog owners and leash-law enforcement agents, marking traps with ownership tags, and careful attention to landowner interests. Most of these are now used but there is room for additions. As in other areas of life, those who break the law or skirt the edges of it and who are unmindful of the rights of, as well as behavior expected by others, shroud trappers in the beast's cloak. Personal education directed at individuals before licensing them seems to be a minimum effort needed to reduce these difficulties in the modern urban society. A professional public relations effort is also needed.
Outputs
The real outputs of a system are human satisfactions defined in the objectives. These need to be measured and summarized and reported as evidence of this system's operation.
Many systems fail because they collect too much data or use such sophisticated data-analysis processes that only a few people can understand them. Some reports are so lengthy that there is inadequate time to read them (much less understand them) before decisions must be made. Several computer-generated reports, brief, carefully developed, with a standard format and with numbers and "the facts" changing after each study can overcome most of these problems. Only the variables need to be changed; the standard report may be automatically computer-produced. Backup documents provide the multiple pages and texts for managers and others.
These secondary documents may include species monographs, range maps, demand analyses, fur market trends, management scenarios, regional reports, land use trends and their influence on potential fur production, and recreational use surveys and unmet needs.
Feedback
Like a thermostat that controls cooling or heating based on a pre-set temperature, feedback can regulate or control a system based on the pre-stated objectives. "Enough in Region II, emphasize practice Q in Region III, hold the practices in Region I steady" are feedback statements that are directly related to management of the resource. Other feedback can be and needs to be applied to the objectives themselves: "Are they properly stated? Are they properly weighted? Are they ample? If not, make changes." Other feedback goes to inputs: "Are too many data being collected? Too few? The right kind? If not, correct the situation." Yet other feedback goes to processes, e.g., "Are the best analyses being used?" Feedback systems monitor carcass fat, estimate animal age distributions from tooth annuli and eye lens weights, evaluate complaints and follow trends in license purchases and harvest data. Beyond monitoring, though, the feedback systems makes correction. Well developed systems are self-adaptive, closing seasons when quotas have been reached, stopping license sales when harvests will maximize trapper profits (not animals killed), and reallocating educational and enforcement efforts. Often evaluators from outside of the system can be helpful, even improving the feedback system itself. Directed at feedforward, feedback also seeks to revise and improve such systems.
Feedforward
How do we design a fur-related system that will not only achieve objectives today but will also do so, even with changes, over the long run? As part of the feedforward methodologies for a fur-related system there should be agency and enterprise activity in:
The feedforward component of systems is relatively new. If active, it has a perverse twist that encourages the manager to be a little wrong this year and perhaps a little wrong later. The effort is to be the least wrong over a specified and appropriately long-term planning period. By properly describing intentions and methods and bringing the trappers, publics, and commissioners along into the future, the agency can avoid the short-term "good" projects that saddle future generations with either impossible or costly managerial environments.
It should be quite clear that I perceive (and encourage others to the same perception) that a group of forest fauna exist with very high monetary potential and that in order to exploit that potential, not only fur but faunal-related activities are required. The fur-related resource system is a monetary system, with high return potentials. It should not be a backwoods anachronism, a pioneer days hold-over, but a modern profit-centered production system. To do so, to be such a system, does not preclude certain benefits claimed for the current disjunct activities such as recreation and historic and cultural values but in this system such activities are irrelevant, inefficient, and certainly insufficient to stabilize full-scale, efficient resource use.
A trapper enjoys his or her work - the pleasure of being outdoors, the beauties of nature, healthful exercise and more. Is this "recreation" or is it a corollary of "desirable employment," something few people now seem to experience in their work days? I do not think trapping "for recreation" should be promoted, encouraged, or even mentioned. It is irrelevant and a topic producing great anxiety and stress among many citizens. Trapping is for money. The fact that other pleasurable benefits are gained by some trappers is irrelevant. The fact that not much money is made is also irrelevant. There are thousands of irrational and unskilled people who unsuccessfully pursue riches in all walks of life. The saddest example are the urban youths who persist in basketball practice in order to play professional ball. The odds of success are so low as to make the activity, with only little "fun" in the pursuit, irrational.
There are people who make their livelihood from trapping, but they are few; others stabilize cash flow by this seasonal work. Only about 0.7% of the U.S. people trap. They sell an average of about $600 a year! Averages are misleading because many who attempt to trap make no sales; few make large net gains. The emphasis: it is likely that no state agency collects enough license fees from trappers to support the activities of administration, law enforcement, or management (when it exists) of a fur-related system. There are very few (and declining) numbers of trappers (though this number fluctuates greatly with style, fur prices, the future market, and the potentials achieved by a fur system).
I do not like to dig weeds from the yard. At least many people will agree with me on that! you may say. Perhaps we have different reasons. I see an intricate system in every plant, a profound solar collector that challenges the best scientific minds, a mathematically splendid configuration that aligns leaves to collect the most sun during the day, a biochemical factory of wondrous loops and processes and thresholds and adjustments to accommodate freezing, grazing, and the pitiful efforts of some yard tender. I think about these things; I hate to dig weeds. Then I dig, because my love of a clear lawn is greater than my hate.
I hate to kill animals, even spiders in the living room, but I do. They are micro-lions, predaceous on insects and other creepy things. They are ugly (to me), but then I have seen people married to ugly spouses. Everything is relative. They are probably beautiful to another spider - maybe even to the other person's spouse. I hate to kill spiders, but I do. I had a fascinating colony of ants in a log, but then they attacked my porch. I hated to kill them too, but I did. I hate to see pigs butchered. But I have and I still enjoy pork. I have seen beef slaughter houses and I did not like them, but I continue to eat beef and wear leather shoes, and benefit from the products and taxes of the entire beef industry.
The problem grows more complex the more the lines are blurred between what is life and how we relate to it. There are blurred differences between plants and animals; viruses have done this for us. Brown marine algae has motile sperm. It seems okay to kill disease-producing creatures, poisonous snakes, and mosquitoes. I kill in my home and yard, but I hate it. I kill creatures even when I walk...but I hate it. I pay someone to collect eggs, kill for me lobsters, crabs, fish, chickens, pigs, and cattle ... but I hate it. I avoid living in a tub of tears or in huddled despondency by accepting the trade-offs I must make. For me to live requires that I destroy life - germs, parasites, garden pests, plants - at least occasionally in order to get energy and certain amino acids.
It seems to me that thoughtful people need to reconcile these difficult problems of love of self and self-support requirements, and the trade-offs that need to be made to live a life that "fits," that matches up, and that has actions consistent with what is believed and stated.
Except for pathologic cases of which I have heard, I know of no one who likes to kill animals. I have known slaughter house workers, poultry farmers, pest control experts, trappers, and hunters and not one truly likes the instant of the kill. To suggest all hunters or trappers and others do so seems an erroneous observation. The instant of kill seems a necessity if people are to eat meat, protect themselves and their foods or livelihood from rats, or any bird or mammalian pests or disease vectors, use any animal oils, wear any leather products, or experience any of the benefits of animal-based medical and pharmaceutical research and development.
There is hardly a need to attempt to develop a rational argument for not killing animals. There are some who "know what is right" and the basis of that knowledge is metaphysical. Others' knowledge of what is right is grounded in observation and inductive reasoning. Some insist upon consistency, others do not. There appear to be no grounds for discussion and debate over issues of trapping. Strong efforts to ban it have been made (Gentile 1987). The use of the leghold or foothold trap has been banned in a few states. I believe that among people willing to discuss their differences and seek compromises and concessions to aggrieved minorities as typical in a democracy, then several premises may be worth study. They seem to be needed in an endeavor reaching for the twenty-first century.
My personal feelings are that while killing is a necessary condition of human life, it has some rules or policies that ought to go with it. One such rule-set is that:
I have avoided using "humane." Where and when killing of an animal is judged appropriate, then I suggest the above as appropriate criteria for doing so.
Dealing with my thoughts about annual harvest for fur is not easy. First, let me speak briefly of pleasure. I pat my dog's head because it feels good. Similarly, I stroke cats. It feels good, and neither seem to mind my doing so. I eat ice cream partially because it feels good. I eat candy because it tastes good, not because I need it. As I list my sensory activities, I can easily convince myself that I am a hedonist. I do not want to stray far from the topic, but there is potentially a hedonistic element to my wanting fur, either for my family, fellow citizens, or myself. I do, because it feels good. I do not deny it; I cannot consider that "bad" given I now realize the survival value in the many things I do because they "feel good" to my many senses.
There are artificial furs that feel good, but few that feel as good as the real fur. There is diversity in wild fur. Perhaps this is a quibble over the subtle difference between a poor wild fur and a high quality synthetic fur. I do not care to press the point. There is a difference, perhaps known only to people like those who can discriminate a synthetic diamond from the real one.
Knowledge of having the real thing, something genuine, is pleasurable. Advertisers work on this concept suggesting only one brand is right. Plastic furniture looks like wood but it does not feel or sound like wood. At a distance, all is the same. True or not, the wearer or owner knows, and this provides pleasure. Pleasure easily attracts negative connotations. I believe pleasure is part of a high quality life and a condition far removed from a condition of existence, certainly frustration and stress. Associated with sufficient pleasurable experiences, I group generally-lowered hostility, reduced personal conflicts, improved personal health, and increased longevity.
I think furs are the basis for excellent functional garments. They have proven over the evolutionary long-term to be wonderful insulators with characteristics needed by animals. My former student, Seth Diamond, found that the energy saved by deer hides as clothing were more important to pre-settlement people than the energy of food. There may be a primitive love of fur. I believe furs should be used. They can save energy - both directly for a person and indirectly by preventing loss of health. Even collars and trim have special functions of warmth, insulation, and reduced conduction of heat from the body. Warm clothes, fur being a part, can reduce heat needed in buildings, heat needed to be consumed in food, and extra heat for outdoors work or play.
I have not done detailed analyses of synthetic furs but in other products produced from petrochemicals, the energy costs are very great. To suggest that synthetic furs replace natural furs is short on the energy argument in two ways. One is that the synthetic furs rarely have comparable insulation (warmth) properties. The other is that they cost a great deal of fossil energy and rarely last as long as natural fur. The ratio of energy saved per year per unit of energy it cost to produce the fur is not favorable.
I generally favor functional garments and therefore take great pleasure in seeing a warm fur hat and coat on a person in a cold climate. I admit to temporary negative reactions to wild furs worn only once or twice for purposes of show or fashion. These are two subtle distinctions that blur my confidence. One is that I do not mind nearly as much seeing domestic furs used under such conditions. The other is that I often see great joy in the wearer and his or her colleagues, and then I must judge (or not) whether such social joy and personal pleasure is worth the cost. Perhaps it is.
As discussed in Chapter 4, a desired condition has several dimensions, two of which are especially relevant here. One is the assigned weight or level of importance. The other is the perceived risk of failing to achieve the desired condition. When an issue is said to be "emotional" it usually means that either (or both) a high weight or high level of risk is perceived. This is usually the case for people protecting animals or defending a future ability to do conventional trapping.
These comments are made to provide the reader a sketch of the dimensions of an analysis of the problems that exist among groups of society that have differing views on the importance of fur, the means of securing it, the production system needed for the animals potentially yielding fur, and the associated benefits (or costs) from these same animals.
That animals have rights was established in 1866 (Gentile 1987). Animal rights activists seem to believe that wild animals have a right to exist as individuals. "Pity for animals is no longer the main issue; legal standing is" (Gentile 1987:502).
I do not know how the legal winds for or against trapping will blow in the near future. Gentile (1987) described the history of anti-trapping activities and Decker and Brown (1987:601) advocated wildlife professionals reevaluate their assumptions, a critique needed for dealing effectively with the anti-management stratagem of animal rights advocates. I have difficulty believing that all animals will be protected from being killed. To do so eliminates all flesh eating, an apparently perfectly natural act by the human omnivore. Inconsistency abounds in the highly emotional terrain confounded by issues of human murders and revenge, military actions, techniques of capital punishment, euthanasia, mercy killings, and a wide range of debated concepts of religious law, morality, and ethics. There can be no solution, only continuing conflict, in such a situation. A personal point of view serves little. Perhaps realizing the impending permanent conflict, the low possibility of solution, and the changing emphases over time can prepare everyone for the challenges ahead to personal views, group positions, and personal actions.
The fur-related system will not likely minimize the zeal of those who oppose a technique and will bring down an entire enterprise or system to stop the use of that technique. (It is a stratagem not unlike that used by people with wildlife interests seeking to prevent developments or changes in wildlife areas. They will argue air, water, archaeology - any impact - to build a sufficient case against intrusions of physical developments on wildlife. An interesting switch occurred. Owls are said to have been grounds for stopping loss of old growth.)
Those in the wildlife management community must surely address (1) new markets; (2) improved capture techniques; (3) minimum time between traps being checked; (4) increased selectivity for species age, sex, and quality in taking animals; (5) fullest possible use of animals, before and after harvests; (6) maximally efficient operations; and (7) estimates of effects of animal removals on ecosystems, zoonoses, and crop and livestock losses.
Justifying trapping on the grounds that it provides information about the population is circular. If the population is not going to be trapped, little knowledge about it is needed except for general biological or ecological objectives. There are other techniques with well-designed studies to find out more, more cost effectively.
The concerns over trapping are not rooted in the 12 objectives (except for No. 11 which I suggest will be given a low weight) but largely in the techniques employed.
By all parties in the conflict attempting to "wage a better war," perhaps the costs of the conflict can be reduced and the localized, meaningless, individual acts abhorrent to almost all people and excessively and unfairly costly to a few can become the targets of action. Perhaps conferences, joint research efforts, and unique writing or multimedia efforts can be the grounds for reducing the fronts over which the costly and wasteful conflict can be waged, and net benefits built. Net is an important concept, especially for a public agency working with a faunal system. An equal number of aggrieved citizens and pleased citizens, assuming approximately equal intensity of feeling, is a resource operation of zero value. There are relatively few licensed trappers in each state; fewer still serious trappers making profits. It would not be difficult to demonstrate a net social loss. Collectively, the issue rarely is of much relevance to legislators given the size of the voting block. Because so potentially highly emotional, the topic cannot be ignored by legislators.
Conclusion
Leaving the heady atmosphere of imagined enterprises and an interminable ethical war, it is important to address some practical topics for the forester who lives at the end of the woods road. There is more to discover than we now know about furbearers (Table 12.1) and their ecology. More than in any other system, we need to know more about trappers and people interested in furbearers. I believe we now know less about them than about other users of faunal resources. There are exciting opportunities for research in this realm - in the entire fur- related system.
Research of the type needed requires much money, consistently applied. The wildlife agencies have not seemed to have had it or have been unwilling to spend it in this field. Not expecting any change, even further reluctance, I have tried to stress profitable enterprises, perhaps formation of conglomerates which, as most such successful enterprises do, use research and development to grow, compete, and increase markets and profits. The agencies may then be left, perhaps properly, with regulatory and monitoring-to-prevent-over-exploitation roles. They could get back into the system by (a) working with fur-related labor unions in self-preservation programs of funded research and development, (b) assessing trappers a small amount (1 to 10 cents) on every pelt tagged, all to go to research on the fur-related system, (c) matching support from animal rights and anti-cruelty groups, (d) using a dedicated portion of all trapper licenses sold for research, (e) making challenge grants to trapping groups, and (f) taxing all fur garments sold in an area, all to go to research and development. Needs are too site specific and local differences too great, and past successes too slight and unsustained to suggest federal tax (from whatever sources) support. A national scientific advisory board with capability to aid in research design could be very helpful, but not within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The managers of wildlife has struggled to find a good valuation device. Few have documented the fur industry or its enormous potentials. If "money talks," as so commonly asserted, this one component of wildlife management activities may be sufficient to justify most if not all such activities. At least when combined with vertebrate pest and predator loss controls, the faunal system manager's interest in a fur-bearer system becomes readily justified on monetary grounds without resorting to claims of recreational values. For the forester, real value can be derived from selling trapping rights to lands. Even lands that are too steep or otherwise inaccessible for wood production can become profitable (at least pay taxes) when managed for returns from fur-related activity. Extra profits, not trivial, inefficient, or submarginal income is possible in many forest land situations.
Populations are to be managed as discussed in Chapter 9. Habitats are to be managed as discussed in Chapter 7. Each species, in fact, each profit producing life form (e.g., the female of the fisher (Martes pennanti) is the profit producer) needs to be studied and selective work - for meeting life needs, for economical harvests, for efficient processing, and for maximum sales values - all need to be done in unison.
Because many furbearers are predators, the successful fur-related system manager becomes a manager of the prey base. This often includes habitat work but the animal habitat to be studied is not only that of the fur producer but the habitat of the top two or three major prey species.
Because of predator-prey relationships that result in very high energy losses, the production of predaceous fur animals is very costly. The energetic inefficiencies are great. Very high food supplies and very energy-conserving conditions are needed for production of dense populations from which to harvest fur-bearing animals. Abundant food is needed that is seasonally stable, in areas where energy losses are low from fights, escapes, and disturbance during reproduction. Areas are needed where there are low energy costs for movement, and thermally efficient winter cover or dens. These can be found - the contributions of the natural ecosystem - or created by the manager. Such work will include creating dens and nesting areas, adding nesting materials and food, creating mouse and squirrel "hotels" - places of maximum possible food production, and taking actions to damp out the occasional lows in seasonal food production. The current trappers know what "good" winter habitat looks like in each area. They need to be asked, then such places duplicated. The trappers probably are less aware of spring and summer optimums but local situations need to be studied and experiments conducted in the field. I view these as clinical efforts, not replicated, but with notes made for future managers, and with as much evaluation done as possible (e.g., predators called up before and after; scent post track counts compared). I have a feeling that if a manager were told "your salary increase depends on good evidence of increased furbearers" then there will be legitimate increases in animals. (Most faunal system managers know that releasing animals into a populated area will cause decreases (due to stress, competition, etc.) so that will not be the technique selected to increase the salary.)
The faunal system manager can become trapped by scale when working with a fur system. Much wildlife management is conducted at a micro scale - plant a food patch, prune a tree, build a half-kilometer trail. The fur system manager must concentrate on a larger scale, an area. Quality of areas, though important, is not as important as raw total area. "Habitat losses" are measured, at least for most furbearers, in simple terms of area. Regional gains and losses are the topics of interest for the system manager. The forester giving attention only to a watershed will watch animal populations follow successional trends. "Trapped out" or "driven off" or "diseased" will be the false, uninformed claims by those ignorant of succession and the faunal associates, the prey, in each seral stage.
The manager of a fur-related enterprise deciding to lease access, trapping opportunity, or time, needs to consider the possibilities that people interested in trapping should be "hired" and paid based on harvests of specified animals, penalized for taking those not specified, and discharged for violations (such as not reporting trapped animals). Opportunities to learn techniques, utilize efficient equipment, etc. would be provided.
By division of labor, for example, letting experts process carcasses and hides (fleshing, trimming, cleaning), maximum value can be gained. My opinion is that over 10% increase in the sales value of an annual take could be achieved by such processing. Almost as much can be gained from educational programs for trappers where service of an expert is not feasible. Is improving the processing of skins a part of forest faunal system management? If maximizing profit or net social benefits are objectives, it is. Action to change habitats or a species are just too narrow and limiting for the resource system manager. Every situation is unique. Hopefully the ideas of this chapter will not be rejected because each is not feasible in every situation.
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