The Canadian Sealers Association has lost one of its major figures and a courageous champion with the death of past president Mark Small, on January 18. He was 83 years old.

To show respect for Mark's contributions to the CSA, to our home province, and to sealing communities across Canada, Jim Winter, founding CSA president, Eldred Woodford, current president, and Albert Newhook, an earlier president, were present for the celebration of Mark's life at Trinity Pentecostal Church, in Baie Verte, on the remote northeast peninsula of Newfoundland.

For decades Mark was a major figure in the association's efforts to counter the propaganda of animal rights corporations and remove the politically motivated bans on Canadian seal products in many countries.

Mark cared. More importantly, he acted on his caring. What more can you ask of a person?

Caring is one thing, but taking action is a much harder thing to do. For decades Mark took action. He took action on behalf of all sealers throughout Canada. His presence made a difference. His presence at events was the presence of the people, in the midst of various Canadian government politicians and bureaucrats. In fact, often his presence was to spur those entities into taking concrete positive steps to resolve the issues that plague the Canadian sealing industry – issues that also plague rural coastal communities like his beloved Baie Verte.

Mark saw the sealing industry not only as a 400-year-old tradition throughout coastal communities in Atlantic Canada, but also as an important contributor today to the continued existence of those rural communities dependent on the mosaic of incomes that provide a living for their citizens. Sealing, fishing, hunting, farming, being a "jack of all trades" – all pieces in the financial mosaic that rural coastal communities depend on for survival. Mark spoke our facts, our realities, in Canada and to foreign politicians and media. He did so clearly, passionately, and concisely.

Mark was a man of great caring, and that caring was rooted in his faith as a pastor in the Pentecostal church. His faith infused everything he did. It made him the man he was.

He was not only an activist for the sealing industry, he was equally active in the fishery and in his community.

Despite the challenges of all those activities, his prime focus was always on his wife, Patricia, and their three sons. As time passed he became a loving grandfather, uncle, and great uncle.

Mark, as you set sail on this new voyage may you have fair winds, full holds and bloody decks. R.I.P.

There’s a bright future for the North American fur trade if the excitement of fashion students at the recent Montreal Fur Rendezvous is anything to judge by. This past Fall (November 2-3), leaders of the industry joined forces to bring marketing and design students from three of Montreal’s top fashion colleges a taste of new directions in the fur trade.

Saga Furs presented a collection of innovative fur apparel and accessories from their Fur Vision collection – modern creations that are definitely not your grandma’s old fur coat. Saga also brought hot young New York designer Romeo Hunte, who the students embraced like a rock star. They listened intently as Hunte explained his approach to working with fur, and were especially attracted to his giant blue fox Teddy Bear backpack, fur sneakers, and intarsia denim pants. The Saga Fur Vision team also demonstrated new fur-sewing techniques that greatly expand the designer’s palette.

Mink farmers Rob Bollert and Rob Dietrich manned the Canada Mink Breeders Association booth where students could see and touch some of the natural fur colours that have been developed (dyeing is really not needed!), and learn about the excellent animal care required to produce the quality of mink North America is known for.

SEE ALSO: Facts about fur farming. Truth About Fur.

“The students were very interested in learning that mink health and well-being is assured by strict codes of practice, and that Canadian mink farms are inspected and certified to ensure compliance with those standards,” said Rob Bollert. “It was very encouraging to see how open they are to using fur if they are confident that it is produced responsibly.”

Canadian trappers and wild fur were represented by Doug Chiasson of the Fur Institute of Canada (FIC), and Howard Noseworthy of Fur Harvesters Auction (FHA). Montreal manufacturers and wholesalers in attendance included Mitch Fazekas of Mitchie’s Matchings, and Christina Nacos of Natural Furs.

The Montreal Fur Rendezvous was also supported by M-Mode, the Quebec fashion industry “Grappe” (industrial cluster), and CEO Mathieu St-Arnaud was there with several members of his team. Other participants included Écofaune boréale, a research program focused on environmentally sustainable leather tanning and fur dressing, in partnership with First Nations; Fibreshed Quebec, which promotes local textiles following a “soil-to-soil” philosophy; and Mercury Leather, a Montreal-based manufacturer of leather garments.

More than 400 fashion marketing and design students attended the Montreal Fur Rendezvous over the two-day event, while some 50 members of the fur trade attended a cocktail on the first evening, which included a presentation by Saga North America’s Charlie Ross about the current state of world markets.

Saga joined with FHA, the FIC, the CMBA, Mitchie’s Matchings, and other local brokers to donate a collection of dressed pelts to the colleges, to help students experiment with fur.

“It was very exciting to see how enthusiastic these young fashion students are about working with fur, and how interested they are in learning about how the industry is regulated and fur is now certified to ensure that production is sustainable and responsible,” said Ross.

“This was a wonderful event because it is designers and fashion marketers who bring fur to the consumer," said the FIC’s Doug Chiasson. "This was an extraordinary opportunity to build bridges with tomorrow’s fashion leaders,”

When I was a child, in the 1950s, my father would sometimes bring me down to my grandfather’s fur atelier, on St. Helen Street, in Old Montreal. In the lobby of the grey-stone building, my father greeted Frank, the elevator man, who crashed shut the heavy metal-grate doors, and swung the wood-handled lever to guide our clunking steel cage up to the fourth floor.

In the hardwood-floored factory, men in white smocks were busy with the many intricate tasks required to handcraft fur garments. At long, fluorescent-lit work tables, muskrat, otter, mink, and Persian lamb pelts were matched by colour and texture into “bundles”, each with enough pelts to make a single coat or jacket.

The fur pelts were dampened, stretched, and nailed onto large “blocking” boards, to flatten and thin them. When they were dry, a skilled “cutter” traced the outlines of heavy brown construction paper patterns (two front pieces, the back, sleeves, collar) onto the pelts, and sliced off the excess with his razor-sharp furrier’s knife -- carefully setting aside the fur scraps that would later be sewn together into “plates” from which other garments would be made. Nothing was wasted!

Even more precision cutting and sewing was involved when “letting out” mink and other furs. Because fur pelts are shorter than needed for a full-length coat, several rows of pelts can be sewn one above the other (“skin-on-skin”). But for a more elegant, flowing look the pelts are “let-out” with dozens of diagonal slices; each slice is shifted slightly downward before the pieces are reassembled into a longer, narrower strip. The long strips are sewn together into wider panels, wet, stretched, and nailed leather-side-up onto the blocking board. When dry, like full pelts, they can then be trimmed to the pattern.

An “operator” then assembled the trimmed front, back, sleeve, and collar sections with a “fur machine”, delicately pushing the fur hairs apart with his fingers as he fed the leather through two geared wheels that joined the pelts edge-to-edge -- rather than overlapping, like a regular sewing machine, which would make the seams too thick.

Once the fur sections were assembled, it was time for the “finishers” (almost always women) to sew in the silk lining, buttons, and other accessories, by hand. After a final cleaning and brushing, the new fur garment was ready to be shipped to the retail fur store.

That is how fur garments were made long before I visited my grandfather’s workshop, and it’s the same way they are made today. Whenever I bring someone into a fur atelier – even people who work in other sectors of the clothing industry – they are amazed that this sort of meticulous and highly-skilled handcraft work is still done.

Europe's Loss, Montreal's Gain

My grandfather had learned his fur-crafting skills from his own father, in Paris, where the family had fled from pogroms in Romania at the end of the 19th Century. He arrived in Montreal as a young man, in 1913, and – with thousands of other Jewish immigrants – helped to make Montreal one of the foremost clothing manufacturing centres of North America.

By the mid-1950s, there were hundreds of small fur-crafting ateliers like my grandfather’s in Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg -- and Jewish furriers were increasingly assisted by a new wave of immigrants from Kastoria and other mountain villages of northern Greece. Kastoria (from the Greek kastori = beaver) had been a fur production centre as long ago as the 14th Century; many homes there now had fur machines and these Kastorian furriers had honed their sewing skills since they were children.

French Canadians (with Italians and others) also worked in the Montreal fur trade. Many would open retail fur shops across the province, where their fur-working skills allowed them to provide repairs and restyling, as well as custom orders. Unlike most fashion retailers, many fur stores still have an active workshop in the back.

By the 1970s and 1980s, with beaver, coyote, lynx and other wild furs trending in fashion and fur sales booming, Montreal fur manufacturers began exporting to the US, Europe, and around the world, while continuing to service their domestic Canadian markets. The Montreal NAFFEM (originally the North American Fur & Fashion Exposition in Montreal) became the most important fur apparel trade show on the continent, attracting hundreds of international buyers to the city each Spring.

Markets never stop evolving, however, and in recent years consumers have been offered an increasingly wide range of cold-weather clothing options, including down-filled parkas, “puffer” coats. and other lightweight, relatively inexpensive products. Fur apparel (like other clothing) could now also be made more cheaply in low-labour-cost places like China – a country  with its own long fur-working heritage.

With increasingly difficult business conditions (exacerbated by aggressive animal activists) and an aging labour force, the Montreal fur-fabrication sector (like the rest of the city’s once-formidable clothing industry) is fast declining. So, I was very happy when my friend Claire Beaugrand-Champagne – a respected Quebec documentary photographer – said she wanted to photograph Montreal’s fur artisans.

Montreal is a city with deep roots in the fur trade. Montagnais hunters traded furs here with Iroquoian farmers long before Europeans arrived. From the 17th Century – because rapids at the west end of the island prevented ocean-going ships from sailing further upstream -- Montreal became the hub of a growing international fur trade that has been well documented by historians. The story of Montreal’s fur fabrication industry, however, has been largely overlooked.

Claire’s photos are a beautiful tribute to the people of Montreal's fur manufacturing industry, and an important documentary record of this remarkable craft heritage.

*   *   *

Claire Beaugrand-Champagne is a highly respected Quebec documentary photographer whose work reveals the individuality and humanity of her subjects. She was the first woman in Quebec to be an accredited newspaper photographer. You can see more of Claire’s work on her website.

On Nov. 23-24, all the right people – leaders from the European Union and Canada – were gathered in St. John’s for the Canada-EU Summit. Those of us representing Canadians who make their livings in remote and rural areas from Prince Rupert to Newfoundland’s outports, by harvesting fur and seals, were hopeful. Meetings such as these provide high-level government representatives with an opportunity to discuss issues that matter to their respective governments behind closed doors and far removed from everyday citizens.

And, this summit was different. Instead of being monitored only by political gadflies and lobbyists, people in remote communities across Eastern and Northern Canada watched closely. They watched because the summit was held in Newfoundland, where the ocean and its bounties have long been the bedrock of the economy and culture.

This, of course, is the same St. John’s that once was home port to steamers, which brought hundreds of Newfoundlanders to the ice of the North Atlantic to harvest seals. The same St. John’s where European celebrities descended to hold press conferences in front of TV cameras to attack the livelihoods of hunters who put their lives on the line on the ice to provide for their families. The same St. John’s where, for over 30 years, the elected officials of the provincial government sat on sealskin chairs as they debated the business of the day.

In 2009, the predecessors of those same EU officials who were fêted in St. John’s banned the trade of Canadian seal products, striking a blow to rural communities across Eastern and Northern Canada that had relied on the hunting of seals for hundreds of years. Regulation No 1007/2009 inflicted untold damage not only to communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec, but also to Inuit communities across Canada’s North.

The impact on Inuit communities was the genesis of a challenge to the ban in the European Court of Justice, brought by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and supported by the Fur Institute of Canada and others. This was followed by a challenge by the Government of Canada at the World Trade Organization. Though it upheld the ban, the WTO challenge forced the EU to allow an exemption for seals harvested by “Inuit and other Indigenous communities”.

This is the exemption that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said was “working well” and that a “good balance” had been found on seals. This is completely and unambiguously false. Only two bodies in Canada are recognized as being able to certify that a seal product comes from an Indigenous harvest: the Government of Nunavut and the Government of Northwest Territories. In a report from her own Commission, it shows that Nunavut has only exported two sealskins to Europe, in 2020, and the Northwest Territories exported just two sealskin coats, in 2022.

European Sealers Also Hamstrung

Perhaps even more revealingly, that same report contains four EU member states saying that the ban’s “impact has gone beyond its intended purpose”. These four states – Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Sweden – all still have their own seal hunts but are hamstrung the same way Canadian sealers are when it comes to trading their products.

In terms which would be shockingly familiar to anyone on Canada’s East Coast, these states raise concerns about the impacts of seals eating cod and salmon, about infecting fish with parasites, and impacts on commercial and recreational fisheries.

Unfortunately, EU and Canadian officials did not avail themselves of an ideal opportunity to reverse the historic injustice of the 2009 seal ban when they gathered in St. John’s.

But it’s not too late. The European Commission is launching a review of the Regulation on Trade in Seal Products in 2024. Canada can, should, and must work closely with the EU member states that are unhappy with the ban, supported by Canada’s sealing industry and Indigenous leadership, to overturn the regulation.

We also need European Commission leadership to engage honestly and candidly on the damage done by this ban and chart a course to move beyond the mistakes of the past. This conversation must be elevated to the most senior levels and involve representatives of the industry and Indigenous communities directly impacted, not the extremist animal-activist groups whose goal is to destroy the way of life of people who live close to the land – and sea – and who use renewable natural resources responsibly and sustainably..

Revised Jan. 11, 2024.

There have been some dramatic changes in the fur auction scene in the last few years, so we thought it was time to make sure everybody – not just trappers and fur farmers, but anyone with an interest in the fur trade -- is up to speed.

In the most general sense, there has been considerable continuity. Most North American fur is still sold at public auction, although more wild fur is now bought from trappers by small- and large-scale collectors who then sell directly to domestic or foreign brokers or manufacturers.

Where there has been dramatic change is in the faces of the major players.

Rewind Just Five Years

Until very recently, North America boasted three important fur auction houses: North American Fur Auctions (NAFA) with its main facilities based in Toronto; American Legend Cooperative (ALC), headquartered in Seattle; and Fur Harvesters Auction (FHA), a trapper-owned cooperative in North Bay, Ontario.

The largest of these was NAFA, the successor to the fur auction business of the Hudson’s Bay Company, a company that once controlled more than half of Canada, and -- founded in 1670 -- is one of the oldest, continually operating joint-share corporations in the world. Owned by the trappers and farmers who shipped to it, NAFA handled both wild and farmed furs, although farmed mink accounted for the largest share of its business in dollar terms.

With farmed mink, NAFA was in direct competition with ALC, a cooperative owned by US mink farmers, and holder of the “Blackglama” brand, arguably the most recognizable fur label in the world. FHA was NAFA’s main competitor for wild fur.

Then the seemingly stable fur auction scene began to change, and fast!

The first shock came in 2018, when ALC announced it was winding down. NAFA bought significant ALC assets, including the Blackglama label, while other assets went to the New York-based Tax family. With a long history of involvement in the fur trade as brokers, the Tax family quickly moved to set up a new US auction specifically for farmed mink, American Mink Exchange (AME).

Then, the very next year, in 2019, squeezed by a cycle of falling fur prices after several years of record highs and rapid expansion, NAFA closed its own doors after filing for creditor protection. Within just a few years, North America had lost its two largest fur auctions, and gained a brand new -- although much smaller -- one.

Which brings us to today. Who are the main players now, and how is North American wild and farmed fur brought to market?

FHA continues its role as an important seller of North American wild fur, and is the only auction house now doing so. FHA has always also sold some farmed pelts, especially foxes -- they now handle most of the farmed fox pelts produced in Canada and the US -- but their offerings of farmed mink have remained quite small.

Since the demise of NAFA, more North American wild fur is now also bought and sold by collectors and dealers, notably Illinois-based Groenewold Fur and Wool. GFW also buys small quantities of farmed fur, mostly third-section goods in both Canada and the US.

Some North American farmed mink is sold at auction – or in “private treaty” sales -- by AME, which has also leased the licence for the Blackglama label.

But the majority of Canadian and US mink production is now handled by Saga Furs North America, an American subsidiary of Saga OJY, the Finland-based auction company created in 1938 by the Finnish Fur Breeders. North American mink is processed and graded at Saga’s new facility in Milton, Wisconsin, before being shipped to the auction sales in Helsinki.

In Europe too, there have been some major changes.

European Development

When NAFA closed its doors, it was only to be expected that more North American farmed mink would head to Europe – home to the world's largest fur auction house, Kopenhagen Fur, in Denmark, as well as Saga Furs.

But then came another upheaval. Until 2020, Denmark was the world's leading producer of farmed mink, and Kopenhagen Fur's main role was to sell the production of the Danish Fur Breeders' Association – supplemented by farmed fur from elsewhere, including North America.. Then Covid-19 struck and the Danish government made the hugely controversial and ultimately illegal order to cull the country's entire mink herd, claiming (erroneously) that this extreme measure was needed to protect public health. It was a PR disaster for the world's fur industry, and a crippling blow to Danish mink farmers, only a few of whom have expressed interest in re-stocking their farms.

As a result of this politically induced catastrophe, Kopenhagen Fur is now winding down operations. With millions of mink pelts in storage, it will continue holding auctions through 2024, but this will probably conclude its offerings.

This leaves Saga Furs as the world’s largest fur auction house. Saga deals only in farmed furs, primarily mink, fox and finnraccoon, and with the demise of both NAFA and Kopenhagen Fur, has increasingly been handling North American farmed mink. Although the auctions are held in Finland, Canadian and US mink are sold under a separate North American catalogue, and all the mink are certified by the Canada Mink Breeders Association (CMBA) or Fur Commission USA.

As this brief survey shows, the last five years have been a rough ride for fur auction houses. For fur farmers, trappers, and others in the trade too, as revenues declined considerably from the record high mink prices registered barely a decade ago – a contraction magnified by the shutdown of important Chinese retail markets during Covid.

But with world mink production now considerably reduced and markets in China and elsewhere bouncing back, there are already signs that demand (and prices) for both wild and farmed furs are once again improving.

Not least important, as society becomes more concerned about environmental sustainability, fur checks all the boxes: natural, long-lasting, recyclable, and ultimately biodegradable.

The fur trade has survived many crises in its long history; it will be interesting to see what the next years will bring!

SEE ALSO: After years of crises it's clear: Fur auctions are the only way to ensure fair prices. By Mark Downey, Fur Harvesters Auction, for Truth About Fur, Feb. 26, 2021.

On July 28-29, the Fur Institute of Canada descended on Whitehorse, Yukon, for its first in-person Annual General Meeting in three years, and also to mark its 40th anniversary. As part of the celebrations it revived its Awards Program, honouring lifelong contributions to the fur trade.

This year, three awards were presented: the Lloyd Cook Award, the Honorary Lifetime Membership Award, and the North American Furbearer Conservation Award.

Lloyd Cook Award

The Lloyd Cook Award was first presented by the FIC in 1993 in recognition of its namesake's commitment to excellence in trapping, trapper education and public understanding of wildlife management. Among the posts held by Lloyd in his lifetime were the presidency of the Canadian Trappers Federation and of the Ontario Trappers Association, forerunner of today's Ontario Fur Managers Federation.

This year's Lloyd Cook Award went to Robert Stitt, a valued member of the FIC for almost two decades. Robert was unable to attend the presentation, so the award was accepted on his behalf by Ryan Sealy, a conservation officer with the Government of Yukon.

Robert grew up in Ontario where he spent decades trapping and guiding hunters, before moving to Yukon in 2008. One of the first things he did on arriving was to join the Yukon Trappers Association (YTA), and, despite his enormous experience, signing up for the territory's Basic Trapper Education course. To this day, he is a director of the YTA, as well as being a past president.

For the past 15 years, Robert has run a trapline in a remote part of southeast Yukon, harvesting marten, beaver, wolf and wolverine. In most years, he offers upgrading workshops, particularly for marten and beaver pelt-handling and management, and also provides a mobile fur depot service in several communities.

In 2011, Robert became a guest presenter for the Yukon Government's trapper education program, and in 2020 became an instructor. Students regularly comment on his close connection to the bush, his willingness to help new trappers, and his strong advocacy for humane trapping and good fur-handling.

Indeed, Robert's fur-handling skills are renowned, and the reason he has won many competitions. When teaching, he highly recommends his students read the Fur Harvesters Auction manual Pelt Handling for Profit.

Robert's other claims to fame are diverse. He is known as a presenter and writer, regaling audiences with inspirational tales of overcoming extreme challenges in the wilderness. He often writes letters to the editor on wildlife management issues, has published several stories about his life on the trapline, and is a regular contributor to Canadian Trapper magazine. And he is also a renowned moose-hunting guide, and a valued reporter on birds and other wildlife on his trapline.

Honorary Lifetime Membership Award

The FIC's Honorary Lifetime Membership Award celebrates people with long and distinguished track records of service to the fur trade, this year going to a man who has been involved with the institute from its inception, Yukon resident Harvey Jessup.

Harvey started his career in fish and wildlife management as a conservation officer, moving from enforcement to management in 1977 as a furbearer technician assisting with research on furbearer species such as marten, beaver, lynx, wolverine and wolves. This research led to the development of trapline management strategies for these key species. With the assistance of many Yukon trappers, the Yukon Trappers Association, the Manitoba Trappers Association, and the Canadian Trappers Federation, he developed a trapper education manual and training program for Yukon that is still in use today. He sat on the Western Canadian Fur Managers Committee which would later be incorporated into the Canadian Fur Managers Committee.

In 1982, Harvey became the fur harvest manager responsible for traplines, monitoring fur harvest and delivering trapper training. He continued as a member of the Canadian Fur Managers Committee. He attended the founding meeting of the FIC, was appointed to its first Board, and went on to serve for over 20 years. He held positions on the Executive and chaired the Trap Research and Development Committee for six years. He also participated on ISO191 through to the development of the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards. 

His responsibilities with Environment Yukon expanded to include all wildlife harvest, managing licensed hunting, determining outfitter quotas and tracking harvest. He eventually became Director of the Fish and Wildlife Branch, before retiring in 2009.

In 2010, he was appointed to the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board (YFWMB), a government advisory body established under Yukon First Nation Final Agreements, and served as chair for two years. Interestingly, the Director of Fish and Wildlife is identified in the Land Claim as the YFWMB's technical support, so Harvey has sat on both sides of the table so to speak!

In 2015 he was appointed to the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee, a Land Claims advisory board on all matters pertaining to salmon in Yukon, again serving as chair for two years.

Throughout the latter part of his career and while sitting on the YFWMB, Harvey worked closely with Renewable Resources Councils, local government fish and wildlife advisory committees that have direct responsibilities for all matters pertaining to trapping.

North American Furbearer Conservation Award

The North American Furbearer Conservation Award aims to promote awareness and recognition of individuals and organisations that have made significant efforts in the field of sustainable furbearer management. This year's award went to Mike O’Brien from Nova Scotia.

On graduating from Acadia University with a master's degree in wildlife biology, Mike worked as a wildlife manager for the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables of the Government of Nova Scotia. He then became a consultant for many different wildlife management sectors, including the wild fur trade.

Mike has been an FIC Board member since 1998, serving first on the Trap Research and Development Committee, and currently as chair of the Communications Committee. He is also a member of the Executive Committee.

In his work for the FIC, Mike's forte is representing the institute at conferences involving diverse stakeholders and often contentious negotiations. These include the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. He also works closely with other key stakeholders such as Environment and Climate Change Canada and the International Organization for Standardization.

This year marks the passing of four decades since the Fur Institute of Canada was founded in 1983, with the primary function of overseeing the testing and certification of humane traps. To mark the occasion, it has launched a new logo, but is the change purely cosmetic or is there more here than meets the eye? To find out, Truth About Fur interviewed Executive Director Doug Chiasson.

Truth About Fur: The FIC's original logo showed a beaver, a Canadian icon. Then it changed to another national icon, the maple leaf. Now you've combined the two, but with the beaver taking pride of place. What's the thinking here?

Doug Chiasson: When an organization celebrates a significant milestone, as the FIC is doing this year with our 40th anniversary, it's time for self-reflection. So we can see that while our most recent logo, of a maple leaf, did a great job of communicating “Canada”, it didn't communicate “fur” at all.

By putting a beaver front and centre, we remind people that fur and furbearing animals are our focus. And as a nod to the past, the maple leaf also appears in the roundel.

SEE ALSO: Doug Chiasson: What does the Fur Institute's new ED bring to the table? Truth About Fur, June 2022.

Why a Beaver?

TAF: Anyone with knowledge of Canada's history will understand the relevance of the beaver, but can you explain for non-historians?

DC: We often say that the history of the fur trade is the history of Canada. The pursuit of fur, particularly beaver pelts, was a defining feature of early European presence in North America and of relations with Indigenous nations. It played a role in establishing the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, whose forts and factories are the sites of present-day communities across Northern and Western Canada.

That influence was reflected by the beaver's inclusion on the nickel coin since 1937, and its designation as Canada’s national animal in 1975.

Canada is fortunate to have a great diversity of fur resources, but when we think of fur and Canada, we think first of the beaver.

Absorbing Fur Council of Canada

TAF: The Fur Council of Canada has been around since 1964, representing the interests of the downstream side of the fur business (retailers, manufacturers, etc.). Now the FIC is in the process of absorbing the FCC. Why is this happening, and why now?

DC: It's no secret that the fur industry, not only in Canada but around the world, has faced significant adversity in recent years. The war in Ukraine, Covid-19, climate change, and other factors have hurt the entire fur value chain. So the FCC found itself in a position where it could no longer deliver on its mandate as a stand-alone organization.

TAF: So with the FIC now representing the upstream and the downstream sides of the fur trade, how will the entire trade benefit?

DC: In the past, having two national organizations representing the fur trade could cause confusion, but those days are over. Having just one organization represent Canada across the whole spectrum of the fur trade will put us all in a stronger position when it comes to advocating for fur. Whether we're talking to government, the media or consumers, there should no longer be any doubt that Canada's fur trade speaks with one voice.

Broadening Membership

TAF: From its founding, the FIC's primary role has been the testing and certification of humane traps, so it's understandable that your membership includes a lot of trapping associations. Will the FIC now be looking to broaden its membership base?

DC: As you say, the trap testing and certification program has always been a major motivator for trapping associations to support the FIC. That will not change with these recent developments. Other sectors of the trade have always been welcome to become members, but usually they would choose to join either the FIC or the FCC. Now there is no need for them to make that choice.

We're also no strangers to representing trade sectors other than trappers, most notably the sealing sector. Through projects like Canadian Seal Products and Proudly Indigenous Crafts & Designs, we have shown that we are capable of far more than just trap-testing.

Greater involvement from processors, designers, brokers, manufacturers and retailers will allow us to draw on everyone's experiences and expertise, and help us to present the complete picture of fur in Canada to decision-makers and the public.

TAF: Growing the FIC's representation of downstream players is an exciting prospect, but are you also looking to bring more Indigenous organizations into the fold?

DC: We want the FIC to represent as much as possible of Canada’s fur landscape, and to that end, the Board have asked me to look for new members wherever we can find them. I am also working to develop a new Strategic Plan for the Institute, and want to bring a broad array of viewpoints into building that plan. That obviously includes Indigenous organizations, and that’s an area I am particularly focussed on.

Indigenous nations and governments are increasingly playing leadership roles in land use and wildlife management decisions across the country. In much the same way that we work with our partners in provincial and territorial governments, we want to work closely with Indigenous decision-makers and managers too.

The FIC already has a strong history of partnering with Indigenous groups on a wide range of issues, but now we hope to take it to the next level, and having them as members will certainly facilitate that.

To become an FIC member, download the application form here.

Before the Internet came along and transformed our lives, trying to get our opinions heard in the media was hard at best, and almost impossible if the newspaper, TV or radio station had national reach. As a result, most people didn't even try, including people of the fur trade. But times are changing, and certainly where local media are concerned – so much, in fact, that if you have a lifelong habit of not bothering, now would be a good time to kick it.

Realistically speaking, it's still hard to express opinions in media with very wide reach, even just a major city, unless you are invited to contribute. And for that to happen, you usually need to be a recognised authority in your field, or your views have already been published elsewhere. For Joe Shmoe, seeing just a humble letter-to-the-editor in print is still cause for astonishment and celebration.

On the local news front, though, the chances of the small guy being heard are improving all the time.

Thanks to the Internet, local media outlets have mushroomed, unfettered by constraints like the costs of newsprint, air time, or even maintaining an office. As long as you're online, you can launch a social media site, and for a few hundred bucks you can have a website or podcast. And you can then "monetize" your site to cover costs by accepting advertising.

There's a downside, of course. For example, fake news is everywhere now, and many so-called "news" sites are rubbish, existing only to generate income from clicks.

But we're all (hopefully) becoming more selective in our browsing, and quality sites have a tendency to rise to the top. Among these are local news outlets now able to realise their dreams without breaking the bank.

Perfect Example

A perfect example is VTDigger, serving the US state of Vermont since 2009. (The total population of Vermont is only about 650,000, so it's pretty local.)

In its own words, "VTDigger began as a scrappy, volunteer effort focused on investigative journalism. Since then, it has grown into Vermont’s most essential news organization, powered by more than two-dozen journalists and boasting the state’s largest newsroom."

Importantly, it doesn't just produce original reports. It also goes out of its way to encourage readers to submit opinion pieces on matters of local interest. And one of these happens to be wildlife management, with an emphasis on regulations for trapping furbearers.

So if Vermonters weren't informed before, they must now be one of the most informed communities in North America on this subject. A simple search of VTDigger's website for the term "trapping" brings up literally hundreds of opinion pieces submitted by readers, so many in fact that we'll list only a few of the more recent ones here:

Kevin Lawrence: Anti-hunters contribute nothing to Vermont’s wild places. June 11, 2023.

Jim Taylor: Four tribes of Abenaki do not support the anti-trapping movement.' June 4, 2023.

Will Staats: Vermont’s trapping culture is being threatened. May 7, 2023.

Brehan Furfey: Wildlife conservation depends on regulated trapping. April 20, 2023

Ray Gonda: The value of trapping vs. the anti-establishment animal rights persons. April 18, 2023.

Mike Covey: If you don’t like fishing, hunting or trapping, then don’t partake. February 8, 2023.

Bruce Baroffio: Trapping has a process for best management practices. February 7, 2023.

Paul Noel: No one more than a trapper wants to avoid catching a domestic dog. January 19, 2023.

Wider Audience

As icing on the cake, many of these opinion pieces find an audience beyond readers of VTDigger – sometimes far beyond.

That others are interested is unsurprising, since the debate about trapping regulations is playing out across North America. But how does word spread?

SEE ALSO: When pet dogs are accidentally trapped, why are media reports so unbalanced? Truth About Fur.

Again, it's all down to the power of the Internet.

I first learned about VTDigger when its opinion pieces started showing up in my Google Alerts feed. This is a free web content monitoring service, but there are many others, and millions of people are using them. Or there are many other ways you might stumble on these pieces, the most common being "shares" on social media sites.

But this not an article promoting one local media site that happens to have a lot of quality trapping content. VTDigger is just an example which shows how local media are entering a golden age, and, if they're smart, they are positively encouraging their readers to engage.

SEE ALSO: "Fur Fights Back!" It's time for a strong industry communications campaign. Truth About Fur.

So if your local news site is already engaging with its audience, that's great. Get involved, and put pen to paper! If not, encourage them to change their ways, and by all means point to VTDigger as a shining example of what can be achieved.

Also tell your trappers councils, associations, and national organisations like the Fur Institute of Canada, Fur Takers of America and the National Trappers Association, when you see opportunities for us to push back on anti-trapping and anti-fur propaganda in local news.

And last but by no means least, feel free to submit your opinion to Truth About Fur for publication as a blog post.

It's been five long years since a team from the Fur Institute of Canada last descended on Parliament Hill, thanks in part to travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. So, the revival of Fur Day on the Hill this April 18 is a cause for celebration! It's also to be hoped that Fur Day becomes an annual event that Members of Parliament, Senators and other senior government officials can mark in their diaries with confidence.

Our delegation this year was impressive, not just in numbers but also in the breadth and depth of knowledge we represented. Leading our group was current FIC Chairman Jason White, supported by Board members Mike O’Brien, Emmanuel Dalpé-Charron, Corey Grover, Nathan Kogiak, Francois Rossouw, Scott Sears, Robin Horwath, Rob Bollert and Brian Dicks.

Also joining us were Seals & Sealing Network Program Manager, Romy Vaugeois, the Ontario Fur Managers Federation General Manager, Lauren Tonelli, as well as Matt Moses of the Canada Mink Breeders Association. Ably supporting us at Fur Day headquarters was a team from Summa Strategies.

SEE ALSO: Doug Chiasson: What does the Fur Institute's new ED bring to the table? Truth About Fur, June 22, 2022.

Strong Relationship with Government

The FIC has always had a strong and important relationship with government, going back to our establishment by Wildlife Ministers in 1983. For the last forty years, we have engaged closely with federal, provincial and territorial governments, particularly in fulfilling our mandate to test and certify trap compliance with the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards.

But good relationships must be nurtured, and after a five-year absence from Parliament Hill, our reappearance was long overdue. Of course, we wanted to connect with old friends we hadn't seen in a while, but more importantly, we needed to meet a new cadre of MPs and Senators, and identify new champions for Canada’s sustainable, humane fur trade.

Many of these Parliamentarians, and especially those from rural and remote areas, represent communities where trapping plays a vital role in the local economy. So it was important for us to touch base with representatives from across the country, from the West, East and Arctic coasts and many points in between. It was also refreshing to be reminded that Canada’s fur trade is not a partisan issue, with strong support to be found in all the major political parties.

Unified Message

There is always room for improvement in the way federal government regulates businesses, and this was the thrust of our unified message on Fur Day.

Under the current arrangement, a long list of departments and agencies are involved in regulating different aspects of the fur trade. These include Environment and Climate Change Canada, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Global Affairs Canada, Industry Science and Economic Development Canada, Fisheries & Oceans Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Export Development Canada, and the seven federal Regional Development Agencies.

All these departments and agencies play their own role in determining what form the fur trade takes, and the result is often misalignment and confusion. For example, if a fur business wants to know what federal support exists for them, and how to access it, they can get lost in a bureaucratic maze.

Given that the fur sector was, until quite recently, worth more than $1 billion to the Canadian economy, it is unsurprising that we enjoy strong support among politicians at all levels of government. But what is surprising is that there is no one department within the federal government dedicated to providing a home base for the entire fur trade, and acting as our Champion.

Such a department would advocate for the fur trade at internal government talks, and just as importantly, point folks in the trade towards the right decision-makers and appropriate pots of funding to support new initiatives for fur.

Reception Time

After a long day with many meetings, we held a reception for Parliamentarians and friends of fur from Ottawa and the surrounding area. But this wasn't just a chance to wind down and relax.

Rather, it was an important opportunity to let Parliamentarians meet others from the fur trade, while also giving them a chance to appreciate the unique feel and beauty of natural fur.

To this end, our reception featured a display of fur garments, home décor, and pelts. Most of the garments and décor were provided courtesy of Rob Cahill of Cahill's Furs in Peterborough, from his Further Upcycled line. And FIC Board member Robin Horwath, who was also formerly General Manager of the Ontario Fur Managers Federation, showed dressed pelts of the various furbearers harvested across his province.

Looking Ahead

Fur Day on the Hill has just taken place for the first time in five years, and that's far too long. It was always intended to be an essential part of the FIC's lobbying efforts on Parliament Hill, on behalf of the entire fur sector.

For this reason, it is my hope that Fur Day becomes an annual event, as we strive to bring the full power of the federal government behind the fur sector, where it belongs.   

Calvin Kania and Panos Panagiotidis are on a mission to share their passion for making beautiful fur apparel and accessories, one student at a time! Their secret weapon: “Seal/Fur Workshops” at FurCanada’s headquarters on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and in First Nations and other communities across Canada.

“We realized that many designers and crafters would love to use fur in their collections, but don’t have the knowledge or fur-working skills,” says Calvin, founder and CEO of FurCanada.

Though raised on a trapline in the rugged BC interior, Calvin wasn’t a trained furrier either, so he teamed up with someone who was.

SEE ALSO: Trapline Tales: Ski doos and marten scent. By Calvin Kania for Truth About Fur.

Enter Panos, who learned the furrier’s art from his father in Kastoria, the legendary fur manufacturing village hidden away in the mountains of northern Greece. After earning his degree at Kastoria’s fur school, Panos gained invaluable practical experience working with a master furrier in Germany for eight years, before returning to teach in Kastoria in 2005.

From 2015 to 2018, Panos assisted Vasillis Kardasis, a distinguished professor at the Royal College of Art in London, England, to launch the Fur Summer School in Kastoria. With support from the International Fur Federation, international auction houses, and the Hellenic Fur Association, the Summer School provided an introduction to the full fur-production process for designers, journalists and others from around the world.

SEE ALSO: Master furrier Panos Panagiotidis to head new FurCanada workshop. Truth About Fur.

Not Only Designers Are Interested

At Calvin's invitation, Panos arrived in Canada in 2019, and in March 2020 they hosted their first Seal/Fur Workshop.

“Covid made things difficult at the start," recalls Calvin, "but we are now doing a one-week workshop every month at our atelier, with students coming from across Canada, the US, and as far away as Peru and Australia.

“Many of our students are designers, but many trappers are now also interested. Instead of selling their pelts to a fur buyer or through the auction, they have their pelts dressed by small local tanneries and are making their own fur vests, mitts, hats, and other accessories and home décor items.

“And we are taking our workshops on the road; Panos did a workshop in the Inuit community of Inuvik, NWT, last year, and he just did another in Yellowknife.”

“It was quite a shock stepping out of the airplane in Yellowknife in February," recalls Panos. "it was minus 32 Celsius!

“Cold weather but warm people! There were 16 Indigenous craftspeople in our workshop, and they were wonderful.”

"They Questioned Everything!"

The latest six-day workshop was organized by NWT Arts, a program of the Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Tourism and Industry, with students flying in from surrounding communities.

“Over the six-day workshop they completed three fully-finished projects: a fur pillow, a sealskin vest, and a beaver with lynx vest,” says Panos.

“It was a pleasure working with them because they were so interested in the furrier’s techniques I showed them. And because they were already experienced sewers, they questioned everything!”

So what sort of things did they question?

“One of the first steps in working fur is to wet the pelt, stretch it out, and tack it on a board to dry," explains Panos. "This is called ‘blocking’ the pelt, and one student wanted to know why she should do that. She often made beaver mitts and had never done this.

"So, I asked, 'How much fur do you use to make a pair of mitts?' Two beaver pelts, she said. I laid her pattern out on the board to show that when the beaver was stretched and blocked, she would only need one pelt to make the same pair of mitts. When she saw how much fur and time she would save, she was convinced!

“Another student asked why she should learn to use a fur-sewing machine when she had been sewing fur by hand all her life. I told her, ‘OK, you sew a pair of mitts by hand and I will sew a pair on this machine.’ My pair was done in about 10 minutes and she worked on hers for the rest of the day. When she had finished, I said: ‘Now, look at the two pairs, what do you think?’ ‘Yours is much better, the stitches are more regular,’ she said with amazement.

“It was wonderful working with people who were so engaged and interested. They were challenging me all the time, and they really appreciated what we were bringing them: how we measure the fur we’ll need, how we cut pelts to the pattern with a furrier’s knife – all the European fur-working skills that they could marry with the traditional designs and sewing techniques they had inherited,” says Panos.

Now We Must Teach Teachers

“The workshops have been such a success that now more communities want to participate, more than Panos can do himself," says Calvin. "We will have to teach teachers who can bring this knowledge to more communities.”

Meanwhile, Panos is hitting the road again with a workshop scheduled in Sudbury, Ontario, later in April, and another with the Mi'kmaq First Nation, in Nova Scotia, in June.

“Lots of creative young people are interested," says Calvin. "We give them a taste of how they can work with fur, and they go home and practice and perfect their skills, and then they bring exciting new fur products to a new generation of consumers. It’s a whole new future for fur that’s opening up, and we are so happy to be helping it along!”

Considering how much trapping of wildlife takes place in Canada, it is very rare for pet dogs to become accidental victims. Finding a dog in their trap or snare is not something any trapper wants, but accidents do happen, and they almost always involve someone ­breaking the law. Maybe a trap was illegally set, or maybe a dog was off-leash where it shouldn't have been. Yet when the media report these stories, they hardly ever investigate the crime that's been committed. Instead they turn the story into an indictment of all trapping, including by licensed, law-abiding trappers.

Why is this imbalance occurring? And what can the trapping community do to encourage more balanced and accurate reporting?

Let's start by looking at two recent stories involving traps catching the wrong animals.

Case Study 1 – Prince Edward Island

Last December on Prince Edward Island, a four-year-old Pyrenean mountain dog called Caspie died in a snare while exercising with her owner, Debbie Travers. The dog was off leash, which was perfectly legal because they were on private property belonging to Travers's family. Authorities investigated and found that the snare had been set illegally by someone who had failed to get the landowner's permission. They also found and removed three other snares nearby.

Local media predictably jumped on this human interest story. Man's best friend had been killed, she had a name, a bereaved owner wanted justice, and there were photos of Caspie in happier times. The story's hook practically wrote itself.

The problem arose in the choice of people interviewed for context.

After covering the human interest angle, it should have been a straightforward crime story. There was a victim, the dog (or, legally, its human owner). And there was a perpetrator, the person who set the illegal trap.

A good reporter would address the legality of pet dogs exercising off-leash on this particular land, and explain how the story could have been different under different circumstances. He or she would also stress that the perpetrator was trespassing, and had set the snare without permission and with intent to poach. And while the dog's death was surely unintentional, she died as a direct result of these illegal acts, not due to legal trapping.

For expert comments, the reporter could then interview law enforcement, the government body regulating trapping, and the local trapping association. Between them, these sources could say exactly what laws had been broken, and make an educated guess as to why.

Instead, Canada's public broadcaster, CBC, devoted a sizeable chunk of its report to the views of an ambulance-chasing anti-trapping group. "These traps are indiscriminate, they injure both the target and non-target animals," said Aaron Hofman, a director of The Fur-Bearers. "Dogs, they have keen senses of smell, so what's gonna stop them from wandering into a trap versus, say, a coyote or fox?"

No representatives of the trapping community were interviewed.

SEE ALSO: 6 trapping safety videos dog owners should watch. Sportsman's Blog.

Case Study 2 – Calgary, Alberta

Our second case is different, but hopefully also instructive to reporters looking to ask the right questions.

This January, a bobcat in Calgary spent two weeks walking around a community with a small trap on its front paw. Authorities finally caught "Bobby" (as some locals called him), and took him to a wildlife rehabilitation facility, where we understand he's doing fine.

We can't be sure exactly what happened, but if reporters had bothered to ask people who actually know trapping, this is what they'd have heard.

The trap was a Conibear 110, a body-gripping trap designed to instantly kill small animals that enter it head first. It was not a foothold trap, even though it held the bobcat's paw.

We can also say that the trap was almost certainly not set by a licensed commercial trapper. Such a trapper would never use a small trap like this for a bobcat, and if it were set in an open area, he would have placed it in some kind of box to keep larger animals out. He might also have tethered the trap to something like a tree, as an extra precaution against a larger animal wandering off with the trap attached.

So what almost certainly happened was that someone with no trapping experience set the trap to deal with a small animal, and did it wrong. Maybe they were after a rat, or thought it would stop the neighbour's cat pooping in their flower bed.

Unfortunately, once again the CBC reporter did not interview any trapping experts, instead featuring a wildlife rehabilitation expert who said: “the device clamped on the animal's paw was a conibear trap, which is typically used to ensnare skunks, raccoons or foxes.” As trappers reading this know, 110s are only AIHTS-certified for muskrat and weasels, not raccoons or skunks, and it would be too small for fox. This is likely not intentional misinformation, but simply an over-simplification from a non-expert on trapping. A trapper would have been able to tell the reporter that Conibear-style traps come in a wide range of sizes and strengths, and that no trapper worth his salt would set a 110 for a bobcat.

What to Do?

We all want to be fully informed on subjects that matter to us, and seek out media that produce balanced and accurate reporting. But as these examples show, that's not always easy.

To understand why, consider the life of a local news reporter. In this fast-paced world, deadlines are getting ever shorter, plus most local stories have short shelf lives anyway. If a cat gets stuck up a tree, it either makes the evening news or it's forgotten. So reporters bang out their 800 words as fast as they can, and just hope they got the facts as straight as they could.

Anti-trapping groups pander to this weakness. Even though they don't know how to trap, and have no experience in improving trapping technologies, practices, or regulations, they have made themselves go-to sources for comment whenever trapping makes the news. They make themselves very accessible, and have sound bytes and images ready to go.

They're sneaky too. On their websites they're clear about wanting to ban all trapping, but for the media, they take a soft-sell approach to make them sound reasonable. Regulations should be tightened, they say. More safeguards are needed. They may even act like they have a great new idea, though in truth every option to make trapping safer has already been considered somewhere in the country.

And the result, almost always, is a news report that is a one-sided indictment of all trapping, including the legal activities of licensed commercial trappers. We all get tarred with the same brush.

So if we hope to see balanced, objective reports about trapping, we need to be playing this game too. We are the authorities, not them, and we need to make sure reporters know this. But even more important, we need to be accessible, and that's the tricky part.

We can't match the accessibility of anti-trapping groups because we simply don't have the manpower to flood reporters' email or voice mail. Plus we have other work to do – be it actual trapping, or unrelated jobs that most trappers have. In contrast, all anti-trapping groups have to do is make noise.

So we need to work smarter, and to that end I offer these suggestions:

• We must be proactive. Trapping associations must make sure their local reporters know they exist before a story breaks. Call them up, build a rapport, and let them know you are available for comment at any time. Invite them to your events, show them that trapping is alive and well, let them know what your organizations are up to.

• When a story does break and a reporter contacts you for comment, you need to respond as quickly as possible. This may mean establishing a rota at your association so one person is always available. The last thing a reporter with a deadline wants to hear is an automated reply like, "I'm out of the office for the next three days."

• If you see a news report that is negative about trapping and does not include a trapper's perspective, contact the reporter or editor and point out the omission. And, of course, suggest someone they can contact in future. As proof that this approach works, FIC reached out to CBC following its unbalanced report on the PEI incident, and two days later it published a new report which gave top billing to the views of an actual trapper.

• On the other hand, when you see a news report that is positive about trapping, and includes a trapper’s perspective: like, comment, share! Even contact the reporter and let them know that you noticed they provided balanced coverage. If reporters see that stories they write that feature trappers telling the truth about trapping get better feedback than the stories with the anti-trappers, they will be more likely to feature trappers again.

With luck, the next time a dog is caught in a trap, the trapping community will be treated fairly by reporters. And hopefully there will be fewer nasty quotes from anti-trapping groups that don't know what they're talking about.

Neal Jotham, the leading light of humane trap research and development, died in Ottawa on February 2, 2023. He was 88. In honour of his extraordinary contributions, we are reposting the following interview conducted by Truth About Fur in 2016.

***

Neal Jotham has played a central role in promoting animal welfare through Canada’s world-leading trap research and testing program for the past 50 years. From his first voluntary efforts with the Canadian Association for Humane Trapping (1965-1977) and as executive director of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (1977-1984), to chairing the scientific and technical sub-committee of the Federal-Provincial Committee for Humane Trapping (1974-81) and ISO Technical Committee 191 (1987-1997), to serving as Coordinator, Humane Trapping Programs for Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service (1984-1998), and his continuing work as advisor to the Fur Institute of Canada, Neal has been a driving force. At times mistrusted by animal-welfare advocates and trappers alike, he always remained true to his original goal: to improve the animal-welfare aspects of trapping. Truth About Fur’s senior researcher Alan Herscovici asked Neal to tell us about his remarkable career as Canada’s most persistent humane-trapping proponent.

Truth About Fur: Tell us how you first got involved in working to improve the animal-welfare aspects of trapping.

Neal Jotham: It was 1965, the year the Artek film launched the seal hunt debate. I was concerned about what I saw and wrote a letter to the Fisheries Minister. A colleague – I was an architectural technologist – suggested that I send my letter to a group concerned about trapping methods, the Canadian Association for Humane Trapping (CAHT). I was invited to one of their meetings and met some wonderful volunteers including the legendary Lloyd Cook, who was then president of the Ontario Trappers Association (OTA).

Lloyd was a kind and gentle man, mentoring boy scouts about survival in the woods and introducing the first trapper training programs in Ontario. Once he rescued two beaver kits from a forest fire and raised them in his bathtub until they were old enough to release into the wild. He invited the CAHT to set up an information booth at the OTA annual convention, and he took me onto his trap line, near Barrie, Ontario.

Lloyd and I discussed how great it would be to do some proper research about how to minimize stress and injury to trapped animals. I thought it would be quite a simple matter. Little did I know that it would occupy the better part of the next 50 years of my life.

SEE ALSO: Reasons we trap. Truth About Fur.

TaF: So you got involved with the CAHT?

Jotham: I was asked to serve as voluntary vice-president of administration, in charge of publicity and communications. Our main priority was to make the governments, industry and the public aware of the need for animal welfare improvements in trapping, because very few people were even talking about trapping at the time.

TaF: How did you go about raising awareness?

Jotham: We produced brochures explaining the need for improvements. We never called for a ban on trapping – we recognised the cultural, economic and ecological importance – but we were honest about the suffering the old traps could cause and the need for change.

In 1968, because governments and industry were still not engaged, CAHT joined with the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (CFHS) to establish the first multi-disciplinary trap-research program at McMaster University (to look at the engineering aspects of traps) and Guelph University (to investigate the biological factors).

In 1969, we were contacted by an Alberta trapper and wildlife photographer named Ed Caesar. He had ideas for new trap designs and also wanted to make a film about trapping that he hoped could be televised. CAHT asked if he could film animals being caught in traps, which he did.

CAHT purchased three minutes of this film and I showed it at a federal/provincial/territorial wildlife directors conference in Yellowknife, in July 1970. That resulted in an immediate $10,000 donation to the CFHS/CAHT pilot project from Mr. Charles Wilson, CEO of the Hudson’s Bay Company, then based in Winnipeg, and some smaller donations too.

TaF: But the governments still weren’t involved?

Jotham: No, so we went public. CAHT added narration and sound to the film, titled it They Take So Long to Die, and showed it on Take-30, a CBC current affairs show. That got attention, all right! In 1972, we were invited to a Federal-Provincial Wildlife Conference where we were criticized for “hurting trappers”. We explained that we just wanted to make trapping more humane, we had only broadcast the film because government wasn’t listening.

TaF: How did trappers feel about your efforts?

Jotham: Many trappers understood what we were saying. In fact, Frank Conibear, a NWT trapper, had been working on new designs since the late 1920s, and by the 1950s produced a working model of the quick-killing trap that still carries his name. He got the idea from his wife’s egg-beater, the concept of “rotating frames”: if an animal walked into a big egg-beater and you turned the handle fast enough, it would be there to stay, he figured.

The Association for the Protection of Furbearing Animals (APFA) paid to make 50 prototypes of Conibear’s design and, in 1956, Eric Collier of the British Columbia Trappers Association supported field testing and promoted the new traps in Outdoor Life magazine. Lloyd Cook was another trapping leader who wrote positively about the new traps, and the CAHT offered to exchange old leg-hold traps for the new killing devices, for free.

In 1958, Frank Conibear gave his patent to the Animal Trap Company of America (later Woodstream Corporation), in Lititz, Pennsylvania – for royalties – and a light-weight, quick-killing trap became widely available for the first time. The Anti-Steel Trap League (that became Defenders of Wildlife in the 1950s) had been sounding the alarm about cruel traps since 1929, but it was trappers who did much of the earliest work.

TaF: So trappers associations supported efforts to improve traps?

Jotham: Several did. In the old days, trappers had been very jealous about guarding their secrets; you could only learn the tricks of the trade if you found an older trapper to take you under his wing. But with the emergence of associations, trappers began to share more information. They realized that everyone could benefit if trapping methods were improved. Effective quick-killing traps improved animal-welfare, of course, but they also prevented damage to the fur sometimes caused when animals struggled in holding traps. And trappers did not have to check their lines every day, like they did with live-holding (foothold) traps.

TaF: And you finally succeeded in getting the government involved?

Jotham: Yes, we did. In 1973 the creation of the ad-hoc “Federal-Provincial Committee for Humane Trapping” (FPCHT) was announced.

A five-year program was launched in 1974, with work to be done at McMaster University, in Hamilton, and at the University of Guelph, where our CFHS/CAHT pilot project had started.

I was asked to act as executive director and to chair the Scientific and Technical Sub-Committee, because we had already made some real progress in developing methodology and technology to evaluate how traps really work. For example, measuring velocities and clamping forces and other mechanical aspects of traps. In fact, at McMaster we made some important improvements to Frank Conibear’s rotating-jaw, quick-kill traps that are still used today.

TaF: And what happened to your film?

Jotham: When the government committed to funding the FPCHT we cancelled plans to distribute our film more widely. Meanwhile, we learned that Ed Caesar had staged some of the “trap line” scenes; he indicated in a letter that he had live-captured some of the animals and placed them into traps so he could film them.

Some people were disappointed that we had withdrawn our film, and the Association for the Protection of Furbearing Animals (APFA) decided to continue their campaign: they used Caesar’s staged images to make a new film, Canada’s Shame, narrated by TV celebrity Bruno Gerussi. The APFA (aka: FurBearer Defenders) has given up any pretense of working to improve trapping methods; they now oppose any use of fur. Their current position brings to mind the comment by American philosopher George Santayana: “Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”

TaF: So what did the FPCHT research program achieve?

Jotham: It was 1975 by the time it really got rolling, and the final report was made in June, 1981, in Charlottetown. Over that period, not only were existing traps evaluated, but a call went out to inventors to submit new trapping designs. 348 submissions were received, over 90 per cent of them from trappers! All these ideas were evaluated and 16 were retained as having real humane potential. But the FPCHT was still an ad hoc project; it was becoming clear that a more formal body would be needed to direct on-going trap research and development. So, in 1983, the federal and provincial governments agreed to create the Fur Institute of Canada (FIC), with members from government, industry and animal-welfare groups.

TaF: How did you get involved with the new Fur Institute of Canada?

Jotham: In 1977, I had become the first full-time Executive Director of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (CFHS), where I had a wide range of responsibilities, but of course I remained very interested in trapping. So I was pleased to serve on the founding committee of the FIC, and then to be hired by the Canadian Wildlife Service (Environment Canada) to manage the government’s funding contributions to the FIC’s newly established trap research and testing program. Initially, the Government of Canada committed $450,000 annually for three years to get things started, and this was matched by the London-based International Fur Trade Federation (IFTF).

TaF: What was new about the Fur Institute of Canada’s program?

Jotham: First, we established of the world’s first state-of-the-art trap-research facility in Vegreville, Alberta, which includes a testing compound in a natural setting. All our testing protocols were approved by the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), the same group that approves animal research protocols in Canadian universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical laboratories.

In 1995, another dramatic breakthrough was made. The researchers had collected enough data to develop algorithms that allowed evaluation of the humane potential of traps without using animals at all; we can now analyse the trap’s mechanical properties with computer simulation models. This made it unnecessary to capture, transport and house thousands of wild animals – while saving millions of dollars.

TaF: Did this research help with the formulation of the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (AIHTS)?

Jotham: Canadian research was vital for the AIHTS. We had begun working on trapping standards as early as 1981, with the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB), and by 1984 we had the first standard for killing traps. But with calls growing in Europe for a ban on leg-hold traps – and because virtually every country in the world uses trapping for various purposes – the CGSB suggested that there was a need for an international standard. To this end, ISO Technical Committee 191, of the International Organization for Standardization, was established in 1987, with yours truly as the first Chairman.

Our timing was good; by 1991, a EU Directive was being proposed that would not only ban the use of “leg-hold” traps in Europe, but would also block the import of most commercially-traded wild furs from any country that had not done the same. Because the stated goal of the legislation was to promote animal welfare – and because all EU member states permit the trapping of animals with methods basically the same as those used in Canada – Canadian diplomats succeeded in having the EU Directive amended to admit furs from countries using traps that “meet international humane trapping standards”.

The problem was that no such standards existed yet, and animal activists on ISO Technical Committee 191 refused to allow the word “humane” to be used in our documents. The deadlock was resolved by agreeing that ISO would develop only the trap-testing methodology, leaving it to individual governments to decide what animal-welfare thresholds they would require.

In 1995, the governments of the EU and the major wild-fur producing countries (Canada, the USA and Russia) developed the AIHTS, which was signed in 1997, and ratified by Canada in 1998. (For constitutional reasons, the US signed a similar but separate “Agreed Minute”.) The AIHTS explicitly requires that ISO trap-testing methodology must be used to test traps.

TaF: What are the main contributions of the AIHTS?

Jotham: The AIHTS is the world’s first international agreement on animal welfare, I think we can be very proud of that. Concerns about the humaneness of trapping that had been raised since the 1920s, are now being addressed seriously and responsibly. And, of course, the Agreement kept EU markets open for wild fur; Article 13 states that the parties will not use trade bans to resolve disputes, so long as the AIHTS is being applied. In other words, science and research, not trade bans, will be used to promote animal welfare. This is a very positive development.

TaF: And how do you feel about the Fur Institute of Canada introducing a new “Neal Jotham Award for the Advancement of Animal Welfare”, in 2015?

Jotham: It is wonderful that the trapping community has embraced animal-welfare so strongly. And the award is very gratifying personally, of course, especially when I remember how suspicious some trappers were when I first arrived at the FIC. They were convinced that I was an activist mole, while many of my old animal-welfare friends thought that I had “sold out” to the fur industry. But whether I was with the CAHT, the CFHS, the CWS or the FIC, I was always pursuing the same goal: to make trapping as humane as possible. It was a long road, but we succeeded in bringing all the stakeholders to the table to seriously address this important challenge. I think we can be very proud of what we have achieved together.

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In 2016, Neal Jotham won a Nature Inspiration Award for Lifetime Achievement from Canada's Museum of Nature.