The laws enacted by the various State legislatures for the protection of fur-bearing animals, in fact, offer no protection; for most furs caught out of season have no market value, and for that reason are not caught.
In Louisiana a trapper has to procure a hunting license if he wishes to carry a gun while trapping, which license costs only one dollar and is good for one season only. Such a low license, while it may bring a large revenue to the State, clearly has no element of protection in it. On the contrary, it is a truth that it stimulates both hunting and trapping, as there were more trappers in Louisiana last season than before the law requiring this license came into effect. Every trapper procures a hunting license whether he carries a gun or not, and most trappers believe the law requires them to have this license to trap.
Whatever is being done for the protection of fur-bearing animals in Louisiana, the fact remains that they are fast disappearing. Old and experienced trappers will tell you that minks were very difficult to trap last season as compared with the seasons of a few years ago, when they could be so easily trapped in dead-falls. Raccoons, too, which were so numerous in the rear of old cornfields during the trapping seasons, have diminished at a surprising rate within the last three years.
A Female of Two Years.
While laws are being adopted by different States for the regulation of trapping to protect fur-bearing animals, it is time for those who expect to make money with fur in the future to begin raising their own animals. The time is almost here when trapping will be unprofitable. Fur animals will be too scarce to make anything at it. Then people will have to build farms in which to breed minks for their fur, and mink farms will become common. Minks are the most valuable fur-bearing animals in Louisiana, being the most numerous, and they are also the easiest and most profitable to breed for their fur.
Breeding minks in Louisiana for their fur can be made a very profitable industry. There is more to be made at it than raising horses, hogs or cattle. After a farm is once completed and stocked, all expense is about over if there is a large-enough pond in it to supply the minks with sufficient food. Under the present condition of the fur market, each female will average a profit of forty dollars a year. A farm stocked for the first time during the winter with five hundred female minks should bring its owner the following winter approximately twenty thousand dollars. This is figured at three dollars a fur; but within three years the mink fur in Louisiana should be selling for what the mink fur in the North sold last season. With this increase in the price of fur, a farm stocked with the same number should bring forty thousand dollars.
