"I still don't know if it's a moneymaking proposition," said Cliff Brown, a biologist overseeing trapping for the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. Still, Brown said, "certainly, dollars create interest."
Classes for new trappers have filled up with teenagers and old-timers, and in Virginia the number of trapping licenses increased by 5 percent last year.
Larry Kline shows how the otter trap, which isn't legal in Virginia until Dec. 1, works. "He'll dive right into the trap, and he'll expire real quick," Kline says.
(Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)
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In Elizabeth, W.Va., Murray's Lures has been selling trapping starter kits that include a five-gallon bucket to carry the traps and iron rebar stakes to anchor them.
"I've had 10 calls from people that haven't done this for years, and they're retired, and they want to get back into it," said Pat Murray, who works at the store.
For fur trappers, it's just another bump in a roller-coaster market, where trappers have to keep one eye on the trends in Vogue magazine and the other on very rural worries such as rabies outbreaks and coyotes.
Old-timers still remember that business started getting bad after World War II, when the federal government passed a truth-in-labeling law. No longer could the lowly muskrat be sold under the more distinguished name "Hudson seal," and trappers were required to call a skunk a skunk.
The 1970s were a boom time, but the 1980s brought another bust, as clothing tastes changed and animal rights groups increased their attacks on fur as fashion.
The low point might have been about 1993, when the number of licensed trappers in Virginia fell to about 700, down from nearly 5,300 in 1979.
The recent comeback began when fur trim started appearing on high-fashion designs. Then fur became an accessory of wealth sought after by hip-hop stars -- today's rappers reference chinchilla, the fur of a South American rodent, like they did diamonds or Cadillac Escalades a few years ago.
It added up to a good market for all furs, including farm-raised minks and pelts from such wild animals as beavers and foxes. Overall, $1.8 billion worth of fur was sold in the United States in 2003, up by 7.5 percent over the previous year, according to the Fur Information Council of America.
"The fur market itself has been rather warm. Not hot; rather warm," said Sandy Parker, a New York-based journalist who writes a weekly newsletter for the fur industry. "That's fashion."
In addition to changes in the United States, there was a sudden demand for fur in Asia, especially China. There, industry officials say, otter is highly sought after to make coats and hats for men.
The otter market was a special boon to Virginia, which allows trappers to take an unlimited number of otters in areas east of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Maryland limits trappers to five otters a season in much of the state. West Virginia, where the animals are rare, does not allow otter trapping.
Even with the improved market, trappers say their life remains difficult: They get up before dawn to check their traps and spend their evenings skinning the animals and laying pelts out to dry.
There is also a low success rate: A line of 10 traps might catch one raccoon a night. More valuable animals, such as otters, are even more rare.
When the work is done, trappers sell their pelts through international auction houses and receive only a fraction of the price that eventually will be paid for a fur coat or hat.
Kline, the trapper from Northern Virginia, said he often considers his position at the dirty bottom end of a glamorous international market.
"You often think about some of the furs that you've harvested, what became of them," he said. Maybe they're still in somebody's closet. Maybe they were long ago thrown away and wound up in a landfill. If so, Kline thinks of that as biodegrading, "returning to the earth."
