Muskrat trapping is fading in Virginia
Frank Delano
Mar 22, 2009
SOURCE: The Free Lance-star
According to 50 years of trapping records kept by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, trapping and fur prices peaked around 1980. The state sold a record 5,293 trapping licenses for the 1979-80 season. The next season, Virginia fur dealers bought a record 432,968 skins of beaver, bobcat, coyote, fox, mink, muskrat, opossum, otter, raccoon, skunk and weasel.
"Back then, a man could quit his regular job and make a good living trapping," said Jim Covais of Spotsylvania County, secretary of the Virginia Trappers Association.
The price for muskrat pelts peaked at $6.90 in the 1979-80 season. Ten years later, muskrat pelts had dropped to 95 cents. Last year, the price was $3.17.
Last year, the state sold 1,419 trapping licenses. Over the past 43 years, trappers sold an average of 89,255 muskrat pelts per year. Last year they sold 6,280.
