Muskrat pelts fetch as much as $10, depending on quality. Trappers, on average, catch between 50 and 100 each season. They take an average of eight hours after trapping to remove the fur from the ...

A biting wind off the Patuxent River reddened Baker’s cheeks and ooze sucked at his boots as he poked through a maze of cattails until at last he reached his prize: a muskrat, its fur matted and ...

The fur trade peaked in the 1970s in New Jersey when there was a strong market for muskrat furs. Over 4,000 hunters trapped annually during that decade, according to the division. By the early ...

Fur prices are down, but Krajewski, now retired, is not complaining. He gets about $3.75 per pelt, he said, and sells the musk glands to perfume companies for $50 a quart (a quart involving about ...

Zander Fur started in the family basement In the 1930s. Zander’s dad took him out trapping when John was just two years old. “He’d sit me on his shoulders," Zander, 40, recalled.

The result is that fur prices are higher than they have been in years, and more people are trapping. For the past several years, the number of trappers in Minnesota has hovered around 5,000 to 6,000.

The U.S. government promoted muskrat for dinner with a 1943 leaflet "Recipes for Cooking Muskrat Meat," from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service out of Chicago. Erb has a copy pinned above his desk.

Muskrat is a good seller, in part because a muskrat coat costs far less than the $3,800 for a mink coat or $2,500 for a beaver coat, said John Hayes, owner of Cascade Fur Salon in Grand Rapids.