Anyone know how the New Mexico and Idaho fur sales went today?

I’m at the Idaho sale. Results won’t be known until late Sunday and a sales report will likely take days.

I’m quite sure Tom Fisher is at the NM sale. Maybe he will post results when they are available.

Fur sales require a lot of volunteer help and at the end of the sale, those volunteers are tired!!!

spots spots and more spots

Top lot on cats was $3500.00. Saw offers of 900 and 1300 get no sale. About 500 cats at sale.

That's absurd and just plain crazy, all I can see is our permits dropping for the next few years!! Happens every time prices go like this, I've seen our DWR close down and limit permits for way less than this !! Don't know about the other states but would be hard pressed to just keep this pace up !!

I can understand a raise in price, but this high only eliminates permits and creates taking everything in sight, because some can only see dollar signs !

I agree completely with GritGuy. Even states like idaho and Nevada, with no limits, will be cutting back seasons and limiting tags. Those prices are crazy. I can understand a strong market with high prices but this super high price for bragging rights has to stop.

Wissmiss is right. As I told some newer trappers at the sale while checking and shagging fur there is no such thing as a bobcat with an actual pelt value of 3500 dollars. Just buyers getting into a contest for bragging rights. Good for that particular trapper but probably not good for the average trapper or the resource. Members still finishing up the rendezvous today and cleaning up. A few more days before actual results will probably be available. Tom is headed home today after doing his usual great job on the skinning demos and helping with the fur sale.

Apparently the early estimate of 2500 cats for Idaho was off. Actual count a bit under 1700.
We’re still awaiting results. They wanted to give the bidders all the time they need. Usually I would be halfway home by now.

Trappers complaining about too high bobcat prices......

Ya'll wouldn't be saying a word if you had a bunch of cats on these sales.

Yea that is just absurd! Why would you even pay $3,500 for a cat. There is not a bobcat on this planet worth that much. Those buyers might as well just go out in the parking lot and drop their pants to see who has bragging rights.

Does anyone have a picture of the $3500 cat ?

Anyone keeping track of how many western cats have been sold so far? Total and by state? Before game dept. panic they should see what the harvest is. Since cats need that cities tag, harvest info should be easily available and accurate.

Why does what you get for a cat matter to your g&f. I know that all of them are manipulative, but why would they care?

ttt

A $3500 dollar cat doesnt look any better than the rest of the $1200 cats! Just like the Grand champion steer bringing $1000,000 It's all advertising!

This!!!

I remember as a kid in Louisiana that the Cotton Gins would bid outrageous prices for the first cotton picked each year so they could say that they ginned the first bale of the season! Same thing, advertising!

The prices without the speculative negative commentary would be nice as this is an open forum. Makes Me think Colorado has a point the way they have been running.

Do you have any idea what a jacket or coat from those cats sell for? I used to see them in Juneau during cruise season, and even 3-4 years ago they STARTED at $80,000, and went far higher. And SOLD!

Alaska, yea they are expensive, and they also don't sell thousands of them either, I've traveled around a bit and I always am looking for fur coats and such, and see some once in a while but now as many as some think there are, the price's are just way out of line. It would be one thing to see dozens of people walking around with cat coats, but it's not so, other furs, that cost half or less you see much more of !!

It also doesn't take much for DWR's to get antsy about shutting stuff like this down either, regardless if the next season is a year away, No they wn't stop the auctions not saying that, though they can shut down the taking !!

Swamp Wolf, I would be saying it and I would be asking the buyers why as well, and I live in a great cat state to produce some of the best cat's, and I have bought fur at the same time in the same place as these buyers before, I've seen and heard what's going on... It's not helping trapping out as much as people think it is !

I am told by a couple folks I know in that end of the pipeline that the bulk of these extremely high-end cats indeed don't end up on the gallery racks, but rather the very wealthy, and not just the USA wealthy. China is a current major end-market, as is,(was?), the middle east, Russia, and parts of Europe.
Also, while sable has almost always had a prominent role in high-end fur garments, and they never have commanded what the cats are right now, it takes a lot of marten backs to equal one cat belly. And there is good value in cat backs, but not so much for marten bellies.
Either way, I am very happy for our cat trappers, but also agree that tags are likely to be introduced where they currently are not, and reduced where they are.

Wildlife management should be about numbers and habitat, not fur price value…….but I guess they have to factor what could happen with huge prices. Making a fur harder or almost unobtainable drives the black market.

Kinda like polar bear in Manitoba. The super rich Aisians that come up don’t get how all their money can’t purchase a hide. It was a few years ago that there was a bust with a few international agencies involving big money from Mexico trying to get a P bear out of the country. Never made it past Winnipeg.

This is my impression of our sale---we have a lot of Texas, Oklahoma cats they seem to sell well for the quality and some sell VERY WELL! I no sailed most of mine and of course the beaver. My red fox sold at 40 wish there were as many as when I first moved here, my skunks at 21 and the cat/badger feet for.50$ couldn't sell last years coyotes I had tanned. We had a lot of new people not all trappers that I talked to and showed the neat parts on a Beaver and a road killed Bobcat. I've been at this a long time, it takes me a long time to get going again, its like beaver trapping can't not do it!!

Its a good time to be a trapper!

Shakeyjake has it right. Sound biology should control limits and seasons, not fads or sales. If there is an overharvest of bobcats, the biology will bear that out but to panic because a fur article has increased in price isn't wise management.

There is a time lag of 2-3 years between an increase or decrease in market prices and trapper activity. It takes a season or two of high prices before trappers have confidence enough in the trend to mobilize and harvest animals. Likewise, once a robust market price has been established for a particular species, when that price goes down (as it always will), it takes trappers a couple of seasons to believe that an article they have consistently sold for $X, is no longer bringing that price. Trapper activity and harvest fall off, and the cycle starts all over again.

After 62 yrs of trapping the above two comments are absolutely correct.

I've been doing my fur making business for over 23 years now, I watch the prices here always, and I have never once seen the price of cats stay the same in 3 years time, and I know for a fact that our DWR people go crazy with limits every time the price gets over 300.00 a cat. Our state just up the limits on cats, doubt any one here will see the same limit next season !

And we have great cats as well, think them day's of two to three years it takes to change things are way over in my view, those states not ever seeing limits are about to, the clock runs a lot quicker now than it ever has on fur prices !!

I'm probably wrong but we already may be seeing the averages on cats coming down. I see $500 avg for NM and this weekend at Idaho there were a lot of no-sales on cat lots. I'm sure the best cats still shined but my bet is the average will not be $1000 like some recent sales.

I know, I know, NM and surrounding states not the same as Idaho and surrounding states. We will see when sale averages are posted for Idaho. The real story will be the next two weekends Utah and Oregon.

Would not take to much figuring out who is buying them with these averages, maybe they got enough now and the prices will drop !!

I spoke to one of the Greeks that was at this sale and he's telling me that 90% of these high dollar cats are going into China. What I should have asked is if they stay there or get made into coats and go out of country. But apparently the Greeks were there to tell the local buyer they were working with how much to spend on individual lots.

I had a friend that went to the New Mexico sale and did really well.

I know the top cat there was $3500 but what I see above here is the sale average was $500. Lower than what we've been seeing for western sales.

One variable thats statistically significant:


NM has everything from wiener dog flats, to true heavys.


The NV, MT, ID sales will have a higher percentage pale western heavys.

Tom Fisher says NM has a lot of TX and OK cats on their sale. NM can have a good cat depending on section, but other sections will have flat cats. So I would bet that has a lot to do with the lower average. Look at what your average would have been on your cats. Semi's and flats are not going to bring $1000 average.

My offers were in line with what sold at the last Mississippi sale.

I though you said they were going to the FHA auction?

Yep. Did you understand otherwise from anything here?