I know that Shane, just saying how trappers operate here.Thats why I asked in an earlier post how your resource is managed when several trappers are hitting the same resource if you don't know what the other guys are taking.
One response was that trapping is not done away from roads so the resource is hit hard in certain areas and under undertrapped in others so there will be a certain amount of backfill.This is known as the refugia method of management and can work if habitat is not too fragmented.It fails for certain species in certain years when there is a widespread crash in prey species and adult animals abandon their home range.
The refugia method works well for beaver,if you have a handle on the number of live colonys in and outside the refugia.

Since I harvest good amounts of fur,I sent the valuable beaver and mink(and wolf etc) to the market,and kept what I can make money on as value added.(these are the skins that are perfectly good skins but are severely discounted in todays market due to slt dmg,smaller size or not optimally prime).Large heavy beaver with no dmg sell good at auction.And the mink brought a $20 avg for the ones I sent which is good(for me)Mink are easy to tan,but their use in the native market is not based on primeness,so any prime ones wont sell for any more than the II's in that market.So the good ones(the ones the raw fur market wants)go to the auction.
Like I stated you have to manage the trapline properly to have good numbers of animals on the line year after year.Selling like I do maximizes my profit margin,and protects my investment in my registered line by keeping the line healthy.
I have seen what happens to lines that are neglected thru mismanagement(underharvesting).They don't produce nearly the amount of fur that a well managed line does year in and year out.
If you are managing a trapline for maximum sustainable harvest year in and year out,you don't manage solely on the price of the pelts on the raw fur market.If you did that you would be overharvesting when the prices were high and underharvesting when the prices were low,which both will harm the long term maximum sustainability of the resource in the long run.All species need to be managed to keep the line healthy.
Of course I realize in some jurisdictions where you are not the front line conservationist on your line there may be no incentive to manage for long term maximum harvest sustainability.

Why do the Chinese put such high tariffs on raw fur? Are they trying to encourage their domestic fur farmers....or just because they can?

You can be in the black and still not make a livable wage......