For the beaver (castor canadensis), spring announces the height of breeding season - when the cold nights give way to warmer days and courtship sounds the beginnings of a new baby beaver litter arriving by the month of June. While established mated pairs of beavers are busy solidifying the “next generation”, the pair’s two-year-old offspring are also commencing in new beginnings - like a new place to live at the behest of mom and dad. After getting “the boot” from the breeding pair to make room for a new litter, two-year-olds are driven out of the colony in late spring to establish new territories of their own. As this brings “new beginnings” for the beavers, it also inevitably brings new beginnings for mankind - in the form of heightened complaint calls for roaming beavers who’ve now inconveniently “set up shop” in the wrong parts of civilization.
Raccoons are synonymous with urban life. Known throughout North America’s hunting and trapping community as a staple fur-bearing resource for their fur (and in some cases, meat), these furry masked bandits continue to adapt and thrive in the suburban-sprawl of human civilization. As a newly released video report from Tech Insider suggests, the raccoon (Procyon lotor) continues to keep the wildlife control industry busy in almost every major city in North America.
They chanted “Save our jobs! Save our jobs!” Dozens of people who work in the New York City fur industry came to City Hall to tell Council Speaker Corey Johnson to “fur-get” about his proposed ban on the sale of clothing and accessories made of animal skin with hair, fleece, or fur attached.
“We’re here to say we’ve had enough. Enough of the attacks. Enough of the attacks on our families,” said Brooklyn furrier Steven Lilikakis.
The furriers cast the argument in stark economic terms, pointing out that 98 percent of the industry business owners said they would move out of New York City if the ban were to go into effect, taking 1,100 jobs, costing New York City $3.3 billion in revenue in the next decade and leaving lots of empty storefronts.
“I’ve been in the fur business about 35 years now. It’s my livelihood, and now people are trying to take my livelihood,” said fur worker Geoffrey Geters.
“I’m a single dad… this is how I make my income,” said fur stylist Messiah McNeir.
Fur is a natural, renewable and sustainable resource. That means we only use part of what nature produces each year without depleting wildlife populations or damage the natural habitat s that sustain them. The goal is to maintain long-term ecological balance.
In nature, each plant and animal species generally produces more offspring than the land can support to maturity. Like other species, we live by making use of part of this surplus that nature creates. We also have a responsibility to protect the wilderness areas that provide these valuable resources. Modern conservationists define this as the "sustainable use" of renewable resources.
For all this talk about disposable plastics being so bad for environment, it seems absurd that New York City is proposing banning sale of natural fur. Natural fur, as the name suggests is a natural product of fur bearing animals, that are either farmed or harvested wildly. Fur harvesting is a sustainable business, that uses a renewable resource — the furs of species of animals that are resilient and warmth, that when cared for lasts much longer then disposable plastics coats and is biodegradable and non-toxic.
"But there are 130 businesses in the city that primarily sell fur – which employ up to 1,100 people, the industry estimates, and would be forced out of business if the ban goes through. That doesn’t count big department stores and high-end retailers, such as Bloomingdale’s and Saks, which sell fur apparel alongside other items. "
"Native to South America, wild nutria established populations in Louisiana in the early 1940s after fur farms released the rodents intentionally, or the critters escaped. In the 1950s, the state encouraged the nutria to spread, to make up for the decline of the native muskrat population — the pelts of which were once the primary commodity of the local fur trade. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) argued nutria, “a docile and likeable rodent,” would be a “Godsend” for the state’s economy. Whether or not anyone actually came to like the large rodent, which, on average weighs around 14 pounds and has long orange buck teeth, LDWF was right about the economic boon: Between 1962 and 1982, hunters and trappers harvested an average 1.3 million nutria each year in the Louisiana wetlands."
"But a fur-market crash in the 1980s removed the incentives for trappers and left the nutria population unchecked. Initially, the state tried to save the marsh from the growing hordes of nutria by marketing the rodent as a culinary item, says Catherine Normand, a biologist at LDWF. The department enlisted celebrity chefs to create nutria recipes, and handed out samples at events along with stickers that read: “I ate nutria, and I liked it.” But the optics proved too great a hurdle. “It didn’t really take off,” says Normand, “because people can’t get over the fact that they have that long scaly tail that’s very, uh, very much like what a rat has.”"
"Following the nutria’s failed entry into the dining scene, LDWF tried another approach by replicating the conditions that had been keeping the nutria in check during the 60s and 70s. “They came up with the idea of essentially creating an artificial fur market,” says Normand. LDWF placed a $5 bounty on nutria and developed a system in which hunters and trappers sever the tails — which are distinctive from any other native mammals — and bring them to an assessor. Tails are also easier, Normand adds, to store in a freezer. "