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Demand for nutria pelts fades away |
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Friday, 03 April 2009 |
HOUMA - With their oversized orange-tinged incisors, beady eyes and rat-like tails, nutria are not the most endearing animals in the swamp.
But they were once a valued animal, brought to the U.S. from Argentina by businessmen who planned to raise them for their fur and meat.
Their coats, which appear slicked back and greasy-looking in the wild, are actually thick and luxurious once cleaned and processed. The fur, similar to beaver, is dense and soft and ranges in color.
If you fancy a nutria fur for yourself, they are still readily available. A search of the online auction site eBay, for example, turned up dozens of women's coats - some made completely of nutria fur and others simply lined or accented with it -- ranging in price from $30 to $1,500.
The offerings are proof there was once a demand for the fur.
Experts say that was especially true in Russia and Argentina, but with the souring international economy, demand in recent years is slim.
100,000 ACRES
"Nutria is a dead item," said Hillard Ashworth, co-owner of Perry Fur, in Oakdale just outside Alexandria.
Up until last year, Ashworth said, he would drive along the Gulf Coast, visiting collection sites for the state's nutria-control program in hopes of buying pelts from hunters.
Started in 2002 to reduce the number of marsh-eating rodents whose voracious appetites help speed coastal erosion, the state began paying a bounty of $5 per tail.
The tail is offered up as proof that another of the pesky rats - which weigh up to 20 pounds, measure up to 2-feet long and are capable of collectively destroying 100,000 acres of wetlands a year - has been eliminated.
In 2008, an Argentinian fur company ordered 100,000 nutria pelts and then backed out of the deal, Ashworth said. As a result, he and his partner decided not to buy up any more nutria this year.
"It's the economy. We sell directly to China, and they cut back on 200 of their plants that work the fur over," Ashworth said.
"Used to be better than 500 trappers working. They've all died or gotten out," he added. "It's not a real story there, it's just a sad story for everyone."
ECONOMIC DOWNTURN
In the two decades between 1962 and 1982, 1.3 million nutria were harvested annually from coastal marshes for their fur, according to state records. Otter, muskrat and raccoon were also regularly trapped by Cajun fur trappers.
In 1976, at the nutria-fur market's peak, trappers could get $8 per pelt.
But the international fur market began shrinking during the mid-1980s, taking the trapping profession along with it.
"It became unfashionable to wear fur," said Herdis Neil, a Montegut trapper. "And then there was synthetic fur, which was cheaper, and you didn't have to kill an animal to make."
Trappers turned away, too, out of necessity.
"If we were still dependant on the fur industry, we'd starve," Neil said.
Louis Pitre, founder of Pitre Fur in Galliano, said he believes the state's control program contributed to the fur business' swift death.
Ashworth said he's asked the state to lower the bounty to $2 per tail, using a dollar or two that would have been used in that respect to supplement pelt prices. But with nutria-fur prices at all time low - they bottomed out at less than $1 each in 2000 - and the national economy in turmoil, "I don't even know if they could sell." Ashworth said, |
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The robbery took place in Thessaloniki, Greece where robbers actually came through the walls from the beside building and removed 18 fur coats! So far noone has been caught or no activists took the responsibility for this action |
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