ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 47 
COYPU 
From “The 
RAT OR “NUTRIA” OF THE 
Animal Kingdom: 
D. Appleton & Co. 
FUR TRADE 
Mammalia,” by permission of 
and very small animals, pelts taken out of sea- 
son, or damaged in curing or shipment. 
In actual number, in the catalogue before me, 
these derelict pelts, below the third grade, seem 
to represent about 60 per cent of the total! 
Now, herein lies an enormous 
Are the fur dealers blind to it, or merely indif- 
ferent? If they are awake, then why do they 
permit this annual waste to continue? Surely 
they are not powerless to check or reduce it, 
even though they cannot wholly prevent it. 
annual loss. 
Rerorms THat Can Be Mave 
Here are a few measures that the fur dealers 
could adopt to prevent waste, check unnecessary 
slaughter and preserve the fur industry from 
soon becoming extinct: 
1. Resolutely regulate the quantity of fur, 
species by species, that the trade may buy 
each year. 
2. Stop the waste in the taking and market- 
ing of small, young, and unprime (i.e., un- 
seasonable ) skins, by flatly refusing to 
buy them at any price. 
3. ‘The complete closure of depleted areas, to 
provide long close-season periods for the 
recovery of the fur-bearing species. 
4. The prohibition of the use of fur of all 
grades as trimmings for garments or hats. 
5, 7 Able discouragement of the use of the so- 
called “summer furs’ that are worn 
ornamental purposes only. 
6. Finally, the fur trade should establish and 
maintain a code of morals prohibiting the 
handling of wild animal skins that are not 
“fur,” the use of which tends to extermin- 
ate species without justification. 
for 
Prospects For BeTTeERMENT! 
Just at present there are no prospects for the 
betterment of the fur trade situation. 
The trade is a great mass of uncorre lated, un- 
controlled and uncontrollable units that it would 
be a work of years to pull all together into one 
organized body. The etiort involved would be 
very great. and what is everybody's business is 
nobody’ s. There are now four keen rivals for 
“the fur market of the world’—London, New 
York, St. Louis and Montreal. Ask for infor- 
mation from the Hudson Bay Tur Company at 
Winnipeg and they refer your inquiry to London 
for reply. 
Great industries rarely put hobbles upon 
themselves. The feather trade slaughtered wild 
birds until outside people stopped them. The 
salmon canners of Alaska will go on joyously 
exterminating their industry until outsiders call 
a halt. The fur trappers ‘and fur dealers will 
do the same; and no conservationist in his senses 
will take up arms against that grand army of 
extermination in the belief that he can win a 
substantial and worth-while victory. ‘The odds 
against him are too great, the possible reward 
too small. 
Regarding the future of the world’s fur- 
bearers, we are distinctly pessimistic. The logic 
of the situation points to their general destruc- 
tion at a date comparatively early. Once that 
is accomplished, the people of cold countries will 
come down to two resources—wool and leather. 
Will the federal and state governments of the 
United States, either unitedly or separately, 
assisted by the fur dealers, frame, adupt and 
enforce the very drastic and far-reaching re- 
strictive and regulatory measures that now are 
absolutely necessary to put the fur industry on 
a sound and continuing basis? 
Most assuredly they will NOT, unless the fur 
trade asks for it and frames the necessary legis- 
lation. 
We fear that the fur trade will not save the 
fur animals. We fear that nothing will avail 
to save the stock of fur producers except prices 
so profoundly low, and so long continued, that 
one-half of the grand army of trappers will quit 
their trap lines in disgust, and engage in other 
employment. 
The legitimate need for warm furs will con- 
tinue. 
The demands of Fashion for the ornamental 
use of fur will continue. With the return of 
general prosperity, up will go all prices for fur 
and pseudo-fur; and is there anyone who cannot 
foresee the result? 
In order to ascertain how the fur situation ap- 
pears to some of those whose fortunes are em- 
barked in it, we have requested statements from 
four leading fur houses, two in New York, one 
