Trapper & Predator Caller has released their 2014 Fur Market Report. And fur-bearing animals everywhere rejoiced.

According to their own statistics and reports, the fur industry in North America is bearing witness to a 70 per cent drop in pelt prices this year – and they’re not expecting it to stop dropping. In fact, the author of the report notes that the industry is seeing a 30-year low for pelt prices.

Various reasons are given for this bursting bubble, some of which we agree with in our own analysis:

Previously high prices represented a seemingly higher demand (in China and Russia);

More trappers got out into the field and more mink farms opened up around the globe;

A warmer winter in China (their reason for the drop) and the ending of the middle-upper class spending spree in China (our reason for the drop) means the demand in the world’s most populace country vanished; and,

The truth is coming out – people every day are learning the truth about fur, fur trim, fur farming and trapping – and the reducing marketplace shows that it’s having an impact.

North America remains a low fur-buying region – the only growth seen in the fur sector in the last decade has been in Russia – who through their own, screwed-up game of geopolitics is likely going to shut that door – and China.

What remains astonishing to us, however, is the conflict arising in the furrier’s own propaganda.

On one side, we have trappers talking about how they need the fur sales to sustain themselves when no other employment is available. But in the T&PC editorial, the editor points out that many trappers partake in the cruel activity because they enjoy it – regardless of fur prices.

At the same time – and in the T&PC editorial – it’s again noted that many trappers will walk away from their lines when the prized cash value of pelts diminishes.

Add this to the ongoing assault on our intelligence when trappers claim they’re conservationists and do it for the betterment of all animals… well, you get the idea.

The simple truth, to us, is that trapping is cruel. It always has been and it always will be. You need only look at an animal struggling, desperate to get away from a trap that has kept them suffering, to understand. Fur prices will likely have the biggest impact on fur farming – an industry that our governments seem to want to prop up, despite the lack of economic studies or job-related studies that prove their alleged value.

Lowering fur prices does mean one thing: fewer animals will die. And that’s something we want to celebrate.