The following article is reproduced with permission of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Fur Fervor

By Steven Oberbeck

RENTON, Wash.: Spanish Fork mink rancher Paul Westwood sat quietly studying the catalog at American Legend's fur auction as his lot numbers started to come up on the sales floor.

Westwood peered through the eight glass panels separating the viewing gallery from the throng of fur buyers in the adjoining room, then waited anxiously for the auctioneer to bark out a price and rap his gavel.

"Here we go," he said, as the number 44 appeared on the board above the auctioneer. "You work hard for 12 months, and it takes only a few seconds for them to sell your whole year's worth of production."

The first of Westwood's highest quality male mahogany pelts sold for $44 a piece, or $6,600 for the entire lot of 150. Westwood wrote the number down in his catalog, then scribbled furiously as the auctioneer's gavel fell again and again in a rapid-fire staccato - $43 - $42 - $39 - $42 - with each rap representing another 150-pelt lot.

"I'm lucky. I had some big mink this year," he said, during a momentary pause in the bidding at the auction held Feb. 15-16.

In a few minutes it was over. The rancher laid his pen on his opened catalog and relaxed.

Despite highly publicized efforts by groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to halt the industry, fur is regaining popularity.

"Fur sales are strong domestically," said Angelo Pavlis, a second-generation Chicago furrier who took time from the bidding to check out a sample lot of pelts in the adjoining warehouse. "We design and manufacturer our own garments and so far this year our sales are at the highest level ever."

As he laid out the 30 pelts that American Legend chose as representative of the entire 150-pelt lot, Pavlis spoke of the size, color and density of the fur.

"This is exactly what you want - a nice rich, silky beautiful pelt," Pavlis said as he snapped the pelt to remove the dust, then ran his fingers over the fur to check its texture. "These are male pelts and lots of times we'll use those for the collars."

The Los Angeles-based Fur Information Council of America, which represents fur retailers and garment makers, estimates nearly 400 of the world's top designers now are using fur in their collections.

"Fewer than 45 designers worked with fur a decade ago," at the height of the anti-fur fervor, said Keith Kaplan, the council's executive director.

Kaplan estimates sales figures for 2002, due to be released in May, will show an increase of as much as 10 percent over 2001 and will return to the record range of $1.7 billion established in 2000. "The cold winter weather in many parts of the country has been in our favor this year," he said.

For many of Utah's mink ranchers, the February and May auctions at the American Legend Cooperative near Seattle are high points of the year. They are social occasions that bring together ranchers and their spouses to talk about their livelihoods. The auctions give them a chance to visit with the throng of international buyers who could soon be bidding on their products.

More importantly, the auctions are make-or-break time for ranchers, when they find out whether their hard work during the past year turned a profit.

"So far prices have not been too bad," said Stan Rees, a Morgan mink rancher and chairman of American Legend, a organization formerly known as the Seattle Fur Exchange. "Prices seem to be down a couple of dollars from last year, but it could be a whole lot worse."

Utah is the No. 2 state in the nation in mink pelt production, second only to Wisconsin. In terms of the number of ranchers, however, Utah leads the United States with approximately 80 ranches producing more than 600,000 pelts annually.

"Utah would be the highest-producing state but there is one rancher in Wisconsin who has six kids and 16 grandchildren working for him. It's a huge operation," said Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA, which represents mink and fox farming families.

While domestic sales of fur coats and other garments are growing, overseas demand is exploding, with an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the pelts sold at this month's American Legend auction destined for the international market.

As he walked up to the windows separating the gallery from the sales arena, Rees nodded toward the crowd of more than 220 buyers seated at long tables throughout the hall.

"You want to see the international fur market," Rees asked. "There it is now, right inside that room."

South Korea currently is the hot fur market and its buyers often are willing to pay a premium for the highest quality pelts, Rees said. "China is coming on strong but usually they are pretty careful with their bidding. They often are in at $32 and out at $33."
Some published estimates, however, suggest that Chinese coat makers now buy more than two-thirds of the world's mink and fox, although much of those purchases are in the lower price ranges.

Despite the improving popularity of their products, Utah ranchers, like their counterparts in agriculture everywhere, complain that much of the money from the increased demand fails to reach them.

On average, it costs a U.S. mink rancher approximately $30 to bring a pelt to market. With the average auction price for premium black and mahogany pelts last week averaging $37 to $40, on the surface at least it would seem that ranchers are doing well.

But demand for male pelts is only half the story, Rees noted.

Female pelts, which are smaller and used almost exclusively in full-length mink coats because they are lighter in weight and have a finer fur, typically command lower prices. Last week the female mahogany pelts brought an average price of $26 at the American Legend auction although one Utah ranching family, the Becksteds of Lehi, received $65 per pelt for one particular lot.
All buyers prior to the start of the auction vote for the "top lots" in each class of pelts and the Becksteds' furs received that designation in the mahogany female group.

Yet those top lot prices, which are the result of heavy bidding by buyers who want to be able to boast they bought the premium furs at the auction, are an anomaly and do not reflect the overall market prices ranchers receive.

"It doesn't do you much good if your male pelts are bringing $40 and your female pelts bring $20, because then you are only breaking even," Westwood said.

Utah ranchers know they are in a risky industry. Developments on the world stage - currency devaluations, wars and rumors of wars - often influence the prices they get for their product.

"We really do not have too much control over what happens," Rees said. "Those buyers sitting in that room, they're the ones that have all the control. We're hoping to get the highest price we can and they're hoping to get the lowest price possible. And they do a pretty good job."

Still, most of the Utah's ranchers who attended the auction appeared satisfied with the prices they received, although the February 2003 sale will not go down as one of the best.

"The last really good year was in 1996 when the Russians came in and bought heavily," Westwood said. "Those are the years you look forward to, when prices are strong and you come away with extra money that you can use to buy new equipment and bring your technology up to state of the art."

For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

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