Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1920 — Sea Otter Now Is Extinct; Coat or Cloak Worth More Than Its Weight in Gold [ARTICLE]

Sea Otter Now Is Extinct; Coat or Cloak Worth More Than Its Weight in Gold

Everyone who has ever done a day’s rabbiting knows the ferret Not so many are aware that the ferret is merely a tame albino variety of the polecat or fitch, and that it Is a near relation of the stoat the weasel and the otter. -.-- — — It Is from the weasel tribe, says Pearson’s Weekly, that the finest and most costly furs in the market are taken. First and foremost comes the ermine. Ermine, the royal fur, is nothing but the winter skin of the common stoat. This animal turns white in snow time, all but the very tip of its tail, which remains black. The marten is common in Canada, but nearly extinct in England. It is a tree-climbing weasel, and It is this animal which supplies that immensely valuable fur known as “sable.” There are Russian and Siberian varieties of the marten. As is the case with most other furs, skins from the far North are much more valuable than those procured in warmer latitudes. In southern and central Europe is found the stone marten, the skin of which, though not equal to real sable, Is quite valuable. So, too, is that of the Kolinsky marten, which is found in Russia. The otter, it must be remembered, is nothing but a large variety of weasel that has taken to the water for a live-, lihood. While the skins of the ordinary fresh-water otter have no particular value in the fur market, the pelt of the true sea otter is today the most valuable of all furs. The sea otter Is, or was. found off the coast of Alaska, but it has been so relentlessly hunted that It Is now nearly, if not quite, extinct. A coat or cloak of sea otter would be worth much more than its weight in gold.