358 



Mr. DiNGELL. Without objection, the booklet you refer to will be 

 inserted in the record at this jwint. 

 (Booklet referred to follows :) 



Conservation and the Fur Trade — PtrBLisHEo by The International Fur 



Trade Federation 



foreword 



The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources 

 and the World Wildlife Fund welcome and endorse the action outlined in this 

 paper, action which is based on knowledge accumulated over many years by the 

 lUCN and which will lead to important management and conser\'ation practices 

 in the use of pelts from wild animals and in particular from depleted species. 



Fritz VcIllmar, 

 Secretary General 

 World Wildlife Fund. 

 Gerardo Budowski, 

 Director General International Union for Conservation of Nature and 



Natural Resources. 



Conservation and the Fur Trade 



F'or a long time the Fur Trade has been deeply interested in the question of 

 the conservation of fur bearing animals, for it is obviously not in the economic 

 interest of the industry to see any species of wild life become extinct. In 1968 

 the International Fur Trade Federation (which is a federation of the national 

 Fur Trade Associations of twenty three countries) appointed a Committee to 

 investigate the jwsition. 



In the words of H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh : 



"Conservation is an immensely complicated problem and people who leap 

 to the apparent obvious conclusion that it means complete protection of all 

 Avild things are guilty of gross over-simplification. They have merely al- 

 lowed their emotions to overnm their reason." 



The two primary causes of decline in wild animal populations are modification 

 of habitat and overexploitation by man. Modification of habitat is caused by 

 the conservation of land where a species has lived, by deforestation, drainage 

 etc., to agricultural or industrial uses. Often this is linked with the effects of 

 population gro^i:h, the building of new towns and roads, railways and airfields ; 

 with burning, overgrazing by domestic stock and a host of other practices. It 

 may also involve a change in the animal population ; for instance a reduction 

 in prey animals which would adversely affect their predators. Exploitation is 

 as likely to be for food or casual sport as for such economic utilisation as trap- 

 ping for furs ; provided the harvest does not exceed the populations' recruit- 

 ment, a sustained yield of animals can be taken in i^erjjetuity. 



Rigid protection of a particular animal can sometimes be dangerous to its 

 own survival if attention is not given to its food supply and habitat require- 

 ments. Thus the Moose on Isle Royal in Lake Superior, imder complete protec- 

 tion, increased to a level at which they virtually destroyed their liabitat. When 

 Wolves were introduced to the island to prey upon the Moose a reasonable bal- 

 ance between population and food supply was restored. 



It is right that restrictions should take place on the hunting of Tigers and 

 Leopards, but except in the areas set aside as game reser\^es or national parks 

 or other \A-ild areas it is doubtful if any large increase in population can be 

 allowed to occur, for under such circumstances the authorities in the areas in 

 which they exist \\ill be faced with the potential danger to humans and domestic 

 animals. In areas where man has settletl, habitat changes resulting from human 

 activity, allow Leopards and Tigers little alternative but to prey on the increasing 

 herds of domestic livestock. Farmers whose whole income is a few pounds a 

 year derived from cattle and goats will naturally wage war on these predators. 

 In this connection it must also be remembered that, in the past, instances were 

 recordetl of Tigers and Leopards being responsible for the death of many human 

 beings. On the other hand, there are many well attested instances of populations 

 of grazing animals, such as Deer, where hunting has been abolished and predators 

 have been killed off, increasing beyond the capacity of the habitat to support 

 them, resulting in the destruction of the habitat by overgrazing and starvation 

 of the animals. 



