Luxury downturn hits U.S. beaver trappers

By Ed Stoddard and Jessica Rinaldi

HENDERSON, Texas (Reuters) - Harold Renfro, a stocky east Texan, pulls on a submerged cable and hauls a dead beaver out of a chilly farm pond.

"Here he is, a small one," he said. It was the third of the day.

Hired to kill an animal whose dams can cause flooding on farmland, Renfro would also like to sell the pelt. But his usual buyers are not interested.

"Nobody's buying right now," he said.

Renfro, 46, is the first cog in the many-layered, $15 billion global fur industry, one that is caught in the steel jaws of the global economic downturn.

Thirty years ago, when he started trapping, a beaver pelt would fetch $50. Last year, prices fell to about $12 a pelt.

Now, they are so low he reckons it's not worth the trouble of taking the pelts to the buyers -- if he could find any.

As an economic recession grips the United States and other major economies around the world, luxury goods like fur coats are among the first items to be shunned by shoppers.

"We expect fur sales in the United States to be their lowest in several years, perhaps in a decade," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, which opposes the use of fur on cruelty grounds.

There was a similar drop after the stock market crash of 1987, the Humane Society said.

Sales of fur and fur-trimmed apparel and accessories were $1.61 billion in the United States in 2006, the latest year for which the Fur Information Council of America (FICA) has data.

And the outlook for this year is not good, said Keith Kaplan, FICA's executive director. "It's the same impact that general retailers and the apparel industry across the board are having."

Imports of fur for apparel were down 18 percent in the first nine months of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

As early as May this year, Fur Commission USA identified fear of an economic recession as the major factor behind the slowing of imports. Since then, the economic situation has only worsened.

In Russia, one of the industry's biggest markets, total fur sales will halve to around $2.5 billion this year and will remain tough in 2009, according to the Russian Fur Union.