Ep. 4 - Fur Isn't Murder w/ Doug Chiasson

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-iyp6q-16e2dd7

In Episode 4 of Horrible People Podcast I sit down with Doug Chaisson from the Fur Institute of Canada. Doug opens our eyes to a group that is "othered" or misunderstood by society and even people that are supposed to be in their general community - the trappers and sealing.

In this episode, we explore why trapping, the fur trade and the sealing is essential to our culture, economy, communities and wildlife health. We dig deep into the misconceptions, the realities, the research backing why trappers and sealers to what they do, as well as explore Doug's adventures as he educates and advocates on behalf of trappers and hunters.

Find Doug and the Fur Institute of Canada:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/furinstituteofcanada/
The Truth About Fur Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea53oKzsdoY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FurInstituteOfCanada
Online: https://fur.ca/

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Online | https://whywehunt.ca/horriblepeoplepodcast/
YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@jennmcdonald

00:00 Introduction to Doug Chiasson and His Background
07:33 Understanding the Seal Hunt: Myths and Realities
19:48 The Economics of the Fur Trade and Its Impact on Communities
25:01 Legislation and Its Effects on Trapping and Fur Industry
50:59 The Future of Fur: Sustainability and Ethical Considerations

Jenn (00:01.558)
Thank you so much for tuning into Horrible People podcast. I'm Jen McDonald and the horrible person that I'm speaking with today is Doug Chesson. Doug, would you mind giving us a little overview about who you are and where you come from? Just so that you guys are aware, I met Doug because of the outdoor symposium at Parliament Hill this summer. It was awesome, super educational. Yeah, so Doug.

Doug Chiasson (00:01.775)
Thank you so much for tuning in to my parable.

Doug Chiasson (00:29.406)
Yeah, sure. So I'm Doug Chiasson My day job is I'm the executive director of the Fur Institute of Canada and the Seals and Sealing Network. We're the national advocacy organization for the fur trade here in Canada, as well as the seal hunt. I'm coming to you from Halifax, Nova Scotia today. Born and raised in Cape Breton, but live in Halifax.

Jenn (00:54.498)
Amazing. Okay. Yeah, I was in Halifax a couple of years ago and I absolutely loved it. It is. So the fur trade and trapping, is that something you have always been into? Like, is this a lifelong thing or did you kind of get into it later on in life?

Doug Chiasson (01:00.431)
Yeah, it's a great city.

Doug Chiasson (01:12.911)
So, I'd say I got into it later on in life. I ended up here at the Institute about two and a half years ago. But once upon a time, when I was younger and had much less grey in my beard, despite only being in my early 30s right now, I was a political hack on Parliament Hill. I advised the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on, amongst other things, the seal hunt. So I got to know

the Institute on the Seals and Sealing Network through that work. And then fast forward 10 years down the road, they were looking for a new executive director and the executive director, the outgoing executive director who was a buddy of mine reached out to me and he's like, hey, come take this job. I know you want this job, come take this job. So I mean, I've always been intrigued and fascinated by the history of the fur trade and the politics around the seal hunt.

Jenn (01:58.294)
I'm

Doug Chiasson (02:11.03)
My first university paper was written about the seal hunt. it's certainly been an interest of mine, but I didn't grow up in the business. I'll put it that way.

Jenn (02:22.626)
Okay, did you grow up like hunting or outdoors?

Doug Chiasson (02:26.573)
Yeah, like I grew up as a, as a redneck kid living in a little town, middle of nowhere, a little town called Marigree, salmon fishing town in Cape Breton, like a couple hundred people. I did my grade four science fair project on snare and rabbits. So it's, it, you know, there, there's a certain degree of, when you grow up in a community like that, you never really, there's no way to not be around hunting and be around trapping, be around, the outdoors.

Jenn (02:29.536)
Okay.

Jenn (02:54.102)
Yeah, absolutely. You're always into it. That's true. And did you do a little bit of work with WWF?

Doug Chiasson (03:03.267)
I did. Yeah. So before, to the confusion of many, immediately before I came to the Fur Institute, I worked at the World Wildlife Fund for six years. I ran a fisheries development program in Nunavut. So I got to spend a lot of time out in, in -week communities in Nunavut, working with them on developing community -based fisheries. you know, spend a lot of time on land and out on the water and

Jenn (03:12.449)
Hmm.

Doug Chiasson (03:31.895)
hunting seals. So it was some really amazing experiences that I was lucky enough to have for six, yeah, I think it about six years.

Jenn (03:33.579)
Okay.

Jenn (03:44.31)
Because I mean, they're primarily seen as like an animal rights group, which is amazing because I mean, I'm as an animal lover, all for animal rights groups that actually base their policy off of fact and not monetary.

Doug Chiasson (03:59.799)
Yeah. And, and I mean, the, the thing I would say about, about WWF, I guess I don't have any WWF swag around me right now. I usually have my WWF water bottle. cause they gave me a really good water bottle for Christmas one year and still it's still kicking like five years later, is, know, at their core, they're a conservation organization and depending on where they are in the world. And, know, it's a global organization. They're in the a hundred and some countries at any given time. you know, WWF.

Jenn (04:07.311)
cool.

Doug Chiasson (04:28.759)
supported the Canadian seal hunt. WWF supports in certain cases, know, fly fishing, angling resorts and trophy hunting operations and community -based conservation that involves hunting or, you know, either, you know, recreational hunting or subsistence based hunting, which used to get me in a lot of trouble with some of my colleagues at like WWF.

Jenn (04:31.424)
Okay, good.

Doug Chiasson (04:58.115)
Netherlands or some of the other parts of the network that were a bit more on the animal rights side of things or a bit closer to the International Fund for Animal Welfare and other big multinational, like hardcore animal rights, anti -use groups. But we had something that not many other conservation organizations did when I worked in the Arctic was we could point to the fact that we supported.

Jenn (05:16.034)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (05:28.245)
seal hunt. in Nunavut, there's a word that's used as like a pejorative for environmentalists and it's silati and it means defenders. It's like used in a sarcastic sense of like, the silati, whatever. Talking about Greenpeace and others, because their experience with environmentalists is like, these are the people that want to stop us from hunting whales. These are the people that want to stop us from hunting seals. I was in an airport in Kekatarduak one day.

waiting for my flight back to a Khalid and there was a guy in the airport and he was like, Hey, you're the, you're the Sunati you're from WWF. was like, yeah, I'm from WWF. And he's like, you want to, you want to come here and stop us from hunting seals? I said, I don't want to stop that. And I reached into my pocket and pulled out my seal skin key chain. And he was like, okay. And then we had great big chat about hunting and about fishing and

Jenn (06:18.988)
You

Doug Chiasson (06:24.899)
You know, it really was a way to help set us apart when I worked there to point to the fact that we weren't anti animal harvest the way that a lot of other groups were.

Jenn (06:38.506)
Yeah, and I'm kind of surprised to hear that because I was surprised to hear that they were pro seal hunt, pro, you know, harvesting. But I understand why they're pro seal hunt. And I feel like a lot of people don't. A lot of hunters that I speak to this side of Canada, like Ontario onwards, I don't think are as informed or familiar with the seal hunt. And there are so many

misconceptions and everything around it. I brought up the seal hunt to a couple of friends a few years ago because they were talking like, know what, I like hunting, but I'm not going to go after animals that shouldn't be hunted. And they specifically mentioned seals. And I was like, whoa, let's backtrack on that. So can you maybe touch on just to educate everyone that's listening because yeah, like the misconceptions around the seal hunt and why it's a good thing.

Doug Chiasson (07:33.837)
Yeah. So I mean, the, I mean, biggest misconception people have about the seal hunt is that we hunt baby seals. first and foremost, you know, cute white, you know, white baby seals like this one. that that's what we hunt. It's been illegal to hunt. sorry. For folks who are on audio, I have a little, ceramic white coat seal. I think it was a planter at some point, that someone bought for me as a joke, I think when I worked at, worked for the minister.

Jenn (07:44.418)
I have little babies there.

for anyone listening, he held up a cute little statue of a baby.

Jenn (07:57.866)
It's very cute.

Doug Chiasson (08:03.909)
so essentially we don't have baby seals, you know, white coat, baby, the ones you see in all of the ads from everybody that's against hunting seals, all the anti -seal hunting groups, know, IFAW, HSUS, Greenpeace, everybody else. it's been illegal to hunt white coat baby seals since 1987 in Canada. So it's not even a case of, we could, but we don't do it anymore. It's literally illegal to do. So, you know, we hunt seals that are.

Jenn (08:12.652)
All the entire Steel Hunter mods.

Doug Chiasson (08:33.729)
Young, I'm not going to dispute that fact, but these are independent animals that have left their mother, they're for all intents and purposes an individual. They're no longer part of the family unit. They're individual animals. They're weens, they're self -sustaining, they're able to swim. The only difference between them and an adult seal is that they're smaller. And even within that, there's now…

Jenn (08:46.934)
Like they're weaned and self -sustained.

Doug Chiasson (09:01.465)
you know, a greater variance of ages of seals hunted because different ages of seals are hunted for, different reasons. Yeah. So it's, it's, that's the first biggest one. Second one that we run into, I'd say less in Canada, but especially internationally is seals are endangered and seals are far from, I should say with a couple very particular caveats, seals are very far from endangered. you know, the harp seal that that's the primary

Jenn (09:09.399)
Ready.

Doug Chiasson (09:31.041)
seal that's the target of the seal hunt, the population is somewhere between four and half and seven and a half million animals.

Jenn (09:39.212)
And that impacts the fisheries and everything, right? Like that impacts the environment greatly, I think.

Doug Chiasson (09:42.309)
Absolutely. So, you know, we can't have 7 million animals that are a couple hundred pounds that are very flexible predators that basically will eat whatever they can get their, their mouth on, and have it not have an effect on the Marine ecosystem. So, you know, we, we've done some work to calculate, you know, how much does the herd eat or the overall seal population in the Northwest Atlantic eat in the course of a year. And it,

it the commercial fishery pales in comparison. know, depending on what numbers you use somewhere between like 46 times to 53 times, the total catch of the commercial fleet is eaten by seals every year.

Jenn (10:27.65)
Wow. That's crazy.

Doug Chiasson (10:30.565)
Yeah. So, and, we've seen incredible growth in that population, you know, in the seventies we were below, you know, we were down to maybe a hundred thousand, 200 ,000, if we're lucky, harp seals. there, there was a very legitimate conservation concern and it was interesting to see, mean, to see, was born for another 40 years, but, 30 years, but the, the evolution of like the initial anti -seal protests were about

Jenn (10:45.537)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (11:00.389)
Like you're going to kill all the seals and there's going to be none left. And we were kind of headed there. And I mean, it wasn't just us as Canada. You had distant water fleets from Norway and from the Soviet Union, East Germany. We're all here hunting seals because that was, this was before the UN Convention on law of the sea. We only had control of 12 miles out from the nearest point of land. So

Jenn (11:04.363)
Mm

Jenn (11:14.176)
Okay.

Jenn (11:25.89)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (11:26.693)
Whereas now we have control of 200 kilometers from the nearest point of land. So there were a whole lot of, of, know, great big factory boats from all over the world that were hunting seals in Northwest Atlantic. And we were down to a couple thousand, you know, as low as some estimates are 3000, 6 ,000 gray seals. We now have half a million. Like these, the, the ability of these animals to rebound from a very low, low number.

Jenn (11:50.21)
Wow.

Doug Chiasson (11:56.409)
comparatively, a hundred thousand seals, still a lot of seals, but it's, it's, it's pretty spectacular. Those first rounds of anti -sealing protest were, you know, similar to, know, endangered species protests. were like, you're gonna, you're gonna catch the last one. And very quickly it morphed into animal rights. You guys are evil because baby seals are cute. Not you guys are evil because you're going to get rid of all of the seals.

Jenn (12:14.891)
Okay.

Jenn (12:27.402)
Yeah, and the fact that they are so cute, it's so easy to throw that picture up, throw up a video of a seal getting clubbed, which is another thing that's a huge…

Doug Chiasson (12:33.161)
yeah.

Doug Chiasson (12:37.581)
yeah, red blood and white ice makes for very, very compelling visuals. You know, there's enough communications and marketing and public relations classes around the world that, you know, use those, especially the big anti -sealing campaigns of the eighties as like case studies for their students. Cause they're like, this is, you know, they started out with like really compelling visuals and.

Jenn (12:42.849)
That's it.

Doug Chiasson (13:06.053)
really easy story to communicate and they turn that into billions of dollars of support over the next hour, maybe 30, 40 years.

Jenn (13:15.648)
Yeah, and we see it with the anti -gun groups too. They'll use situations, I mean, in Canada, they'll use American incidents or they'll use firearms that we don't even own or don't even exist sometimes to try and make a case. And yeah, it's just really sad the way they play on people's, I don't want to say ignorance, because that's kind of turned into a negative word in a sense, but people's lack of knowledge.

Doug Chiasson (13:28.313)
Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (13:39.949)
Yeah. I mean, and it's, not to say that there isn't room to improve. And we've shown that in the Canadian seal hunt and in trapping as well, that, know, with the proper motivation and with investment, you know, we can improve the way we do things. Like ironically, coming back to WWF, the process by which we kill seals, like the legal process, this is how you have to do it, was developed by a group of international

veterinary experts. That panel of veterinary experts was funded by the WWF.

Jenn (14:17.996)
That's big.

Doug Chiasson (14:18.885)
Like the WWF was like, you guys are taking up way too much oxygen in the room about this friggin' seal hunt stuff when there's like millions of them. We're concerned about like, there's like 17 rhinos left. Can we talk about the rhinos? We'll pay for them to figure out the best way to kill a seal, the most humane way to kill a seal. You know, let's, let's fix that problem because the problem isn't that they're killing seals, cause there's loads of them.

Jenn (14:33.502)
Yeah.

Jenn (14:47.639)
Mm

Doug Chiasson (14:48.473)
So let's, let's deal with this humane piece and then the rest of us can shut up and we can talk about the real issues that are facing wildlife around the world. And, you know, unfortunately hasn't quite played out that way, but it was, it was an interesting approach to be taken by, by an organization with the reputation that WWF has of just like, we're to be the adults in the room and actually put our money where our mouth is and try and fix this.

Jenn (14:54.402)
Real issues. Yep.

my god, it seems like that's an issue.

Jenn (15:11.947)
Yeah.

Jenn (15:16.78)
So do you know what conclusion that panel of veterinarians came up with with the most humane way to just blast the seal?

Doug Chiasson (15:23.363)
Yeah, so this was back in the early 2000s. So the process, know how gruesome you want me to get here. can get… So we call it the three -step process. And there's a three -step process to killing a seal, humanely. And this is built right into the Marine Mammal Regulation under the Fisheries Act. This is the only legal way for commercial seal harvesters to kill seals.

Jenn (15:27.124)
Okay.

Jenn (15:33.356)
Get gruesome, people need to know.

Doug Chiasson (15:53.869)
And it's, you have to either shoot them or club them or hit them with a hack pick in the head to that is the stun phase. you then have to be, someone has to be hands on with that animal and palpate the skull and feel both sides of the brain, of the head and see if both sides of the brain have been compromised so that we can reasonably say that they are now at the very least brain dead.

Jenn (16:23.244)
Hmm, not suffering.

Doug Chiasson (16:23.981)
And then the third step is the bleeding step is you take a knife and there's two large veins that, or arteries, that run right under the flippers. And you cut those two blood vessels and that bleeds the animal.

Jenn (16:41.356)
So that's where you get those overhead shots of a seal bleeding out on you.

Doug Chiasson (16:44.685)
Yeah. And that's where you get these overhead shots of a big red splotch on the ice and someone there butchering a seal in the middle of it is, you know, we, often say it's not to, it's, it's not to take a shot at our good friends in animal agriculture, but it's, you know, there's no picture windows on slaughterhouses.

Jenn (17:04.758)
Yeah, exactly.

Doug Chiasson (17:06.378)
And that's the thing is you get a helicopter sitting a couple hundred feet over you with like HD 4k cameras taking pictures of you slaughtering a seal. Like it's not pretty.

Jenn (17:20.33)
It's not going to look good unless people are educated about it and know why you're doing what you're doing. I yeah.

Doug Chiasson (17:26.709)
Exactly. And it's, it's, you know, it's, it's a higher standard than, you know, basically any other wild animal harvest we have because it's, it was to hold it to a higher standard. Like that was the purpose was let's hold this to a higher standard.

Jenn (17:40.736)
Yeah, and it's species specific so it takes into account like I guess their anatomy and what they…

Doug Chiasson (17:46.511)
Well, that said, these were all things that were put together considering the fact that seals have a very different anatomy than an ungulate or something like that. it certainly addressed the issues of can you kill a seal humanely? But all of the groups that were anti -sealing still said, well, they were just like, well, it's impossible to do it humanely because it's ice and it's moving and there's too many moving pieces and…

Also, at the core of it, we just don't want you be allowed to do this anymore. So we will continue to come up with arguments as to why you shouldn't be able to do it, regardless of how much you do.

Jenn (18:22.604)
especially when the humane method, which is a legitimate humane method, doesn't look or sound so great.

Doug Chiasson (18:29.345)
Exactly. Like that's at the end of the day. And this is, this is true of, you know, just about any hunting outside of maybe bird hunting, right? You know, it's, it's not pretty to butcher moose, right? It's, know, it's not pretty to butcher a sheep. It's not pretty. You know, these are all things that, that, happen, you know, hundreds of thousands of times across the North America, millions of times across the North American landscape every year.

Jenn (18:45.844)
exactly.

Doug Chiasson (18:59.673)
But there's no helicopter from IFAW hovering right over it when it happens.

Jenn (19:04.514)
Like if a white -tailed deer looked as cute as a seal and people saw me like quartering it up in the bush somewhere, there would be public outrage. But yeah, exactly. People don't see it and they're not, organizations aren't being paid to fight against it.

Doug Chiasson (19:15.66)
Exactly.

Doug Chiasson (19:22.425)
Not yet. Hopefully none of them are watching right now, because they're like, wait, I got an idea now.

Jenn (19:24.65)
Yeah, exactly. Probably. God. I'm not giving these people any ideas. You did mention that there's different ages, like different ages you would harvest a seal at for different reasons. are the main, like I guess I should ask, I shouldn't guess. What are the main reasons for harvesting seal? Like food for…

Doug Chiasson (19:48.421)
Sure. So, mean, depending on, on where you're at, like certainly, inmate harvesters, other indigenous harvesters in the North are primarily harvesting for food. So they're, they're targeting larger animals, ergo, older animals, for the most part. So, once you get down into the, the kind of quote unquote commercial seal hunt, the primary target for the commercial seal hunt is the skin, the,

for fur and leather products. But a growing part of that industry is also the oil. So seal oil is a great nutraceutical product, great nutritional supplement for omega -3 fatty acids, similar to fish oil or cod liver oil or whatever else. It's great for people. It's great for pets. We've got some of our members who are doing quite a bit of work now to promote.

the use of seal oil as a nutritional supplement for pets because it great things for their coats, does great things for their joints. We're working on a couple, we're working on a clinical trial right now for seal oil and pets to, but hopefully we'll be able to talk about more in a couple months and to the point of being able to have seal oil be like prescribed by veterinarians to treat particular conditions. So.

Jenn (21:00.663)
Wow.

Jenn (21:06.099)
awesome.

Doug Chiasson (21:09.387)
It's, it, and I mean, at this point, people spend more on their dogs than they do on their kids. So it's, it's the market to be in. So there, there is some small meat harvest, I would say in, Newfoundland, but it's very traditional, very community based. So it's, it's not, it's not like this is, this is not a food production industry yet, or right now, I guess in, in, in years past, it has been at times in the future, it probably will be again.

Jenn (21:14.174)
Absolutely. It is.

Jenn (21:25.442)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (21:39.001)
because we have an enormous amount of incredibly healthy wild protein that's just not being harvested right now.

Jenn (21:39.211)
Okay.

Jenn (21:44.79)
Well, that's it. mean, I've never tried seal, but do you think like, I assume you've tried it. And is it something that you think people would get into? Like, does it taste good?

Doug Chiasson (21:54.107)
yeah, like seal meat if handled correctly. And this is like all wild game. It's, you know, we've all heard the people that say they won't eat Canada goose or they won't eat bear meat or they won't, know, bear meat's gamey and it's whatever. It's like, no, we'll just handle your bear properly. You can't shoot a bear and throw it in the back of the truck. That's just not how this works. Yeah. So like all things, if treated properly, it's absolutely delicious. And at this point I've eaten seal meat.

Jenn (21:57.141)
Like all wild game.

Jenn (22:03.232)
Yes, the comments I've been.

hook properly.

pack off a slice and throw it in the pan. Exactly.

Doug Chiasson (22:22.743)
just about every way that there is. I've eaten it raw and frozen. I've eaten it like in tataki. I've eaten it in stews. I've eaten it in lasagna. I've eaten it in spring rolls. I've eaten, know, I, yeah, it's, very versatile if, if used properly and it, it can, it can be quite good. And it's in, from a nutritional standpoint, it's incredible. It's super high in iron.

Jenn (22:25.505)
So cool.

Jenn (22:37.6)
You can do anything.

Jenn (22:43.169)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (22:52.645)
a super high magnesium, a couple other nutrients where it's very, very high in niacin of vitamin A. It's really good for you. But the thing that makes it very attractive and of great interest to like inmate or other people who are out on the land in the cold is because it's so high in niacin, it gives you that like niacin flush. You feel really warm when you eat it.

Jenn (22:58.22)
Very healthy.

Doug Chiasson (23:22.649)
So I've been at like, you know, fancy receptions in Ottawa, you know, in a suit and seal skin tie. And I'm like eating seal skin or eating seal meat, sorry. And I'm like eating to not really paying attention to how much I've been eating. then I'm like, so hot. Yeah, basically you're getting hot flashes from eating it.

Jenn (23:37.762)
getting hot portions.

Jenn (23:42.476)
Wow, I did not know that. That's really, really interesting. That would be a good tool to have.

Doug Chiasson (23:45.549)
Yeah. So it's, you know, I would love for, I would love for more people to be able to access seal meat for more people to be able to, you know, go down to your specialty butcher and, get seal meat. Like, I don't think it's something that, you know, just a piece of seal meat on a, a Styrofoam tray with some cellophane over it probably isn't going to attract a whole lot of people. It's very dark. Like it's black basically. Yeah. So it's, because they're

Jenn (23:57.154)
Huh.

Jenn (24:10.614)
Really?

Doug Chiasson (24:14.883)
diving animals, have to be able to hold a lot of oxygen in their muscle fiber, muscle tissue. So, you know, similar to like a diving duck, you you open up a diving duck and they're like super dark. meat is like a whole nother degree darker than a diving duck. Yeah. Like it's basically black, which can make for some really interesting, you know, high -end restaurant platings that look wild and crazy.

Jenn (24:25.226)
Okay, Yeah.

Jenn (24:38.37)
That would look fascinating. Yeah, definitely. Now you also work with predator management, trapping, the fur -bearing animals, all of that. And I had seen that you were a witness in parliament on Bill C -21. And for anyone that's not, know not everyone's.

Doug Chiasson (25:01.775)
Yes.

Jenn (25:05.45)
in tune with what all the bills mean, but Bill C -21 was that mess that prohibited handguns, prohibited most future semi -automatics, and I think it just caused a world of issues with trappers, right?

Doug Chiasson (25:20.173)
Yeah, it certainly did. know, we were trappers were one of the particular groups that are carved out for use of handguns. in, the firearms regulations, there's a, you know, a sub bullet for particularly for trappers. Trappers can be granted an ATC authorization to carry for use in trapping. And that use is primarily for like dispatch of animals that are caught in traps because

You know, we have killing traps and we have restraining traps that, that, you know, hold an animal in one place until you get back there and you can choose to release it, or you can choose to dispatch it. And, you know, for folks that aren't familiar with trapping is, you know, picture the deepest, darkest woods and you're on a snow machine and you've got a backpack full of gear and you've got, you know,

big trap setting pliers and you've got a bunch of snares hanging off the back of your backpack, know, then trying to shoulder a long gun on top of that is not exactly the most convenient or effective or safe way to do things. So trappers were recognized as being like, hey, there are legitimate uses for people to use handguns and this is one of them. But with C21,

that will basically disappear. It doesn't strike the section of the regulations, it'll still be on the books, but for all intents and purposes, trappers will no longer really be able to use their handguns at ranges and things like that, so they won't be well practiced in the field. So all it does is create a less safe environment for trappers.

Jenn (27:05.834)
Exactly. No, I totally understand that. I mean, I know there are trappers that do have their ATC, like authorization to carry. And I feel like they're going to have a really, really hard time replacing their products if they need to replace parts or the product altogether, because retailers can't just carry a stock of handguns for such a small demographic.

Doug Chiasson (27:29.637)
Well, that's it is, is, you know, the reality being there's about 40 ,000, maybe 45 ,000 trappers in the country right now of that. There's, there's only a fairly small subset that actually had ATC is because, know, for, you know, men and women that are trapping, you know, in the open prairie, trapping coyotes or trapping Fox, the open prairie, it's not as necessary to.

You know, compact nature of being able to carry a handgun on your, on your belt or on your chest versus, know, if you're driving up to your traps in your pickup, you don't, you don't really need, you know, it's, it's the, arguments are less convincing. Anyway, I'll put that away for why you can't use a long gun. Yeah. You're not in, in, you know, deepest, darkest woods in Northern Ontario, for example. So, or you're not on a long.

Jenn (28:07.958)
Yeah.

Jenn (28:14.218)
You're not going through like deep woods on foot.

Doug Chiasson (28:25.317)
her long range trip out on the land in the Tundra of Northwest Territories where it's, you you don't want the extra two pounds of carrying the long gun versus carrying your sidearm, your handgun. So, well, this is it. And especially in areas, you know, in grizzly bear country, in wolf country, in cougar country, Wolverine country even, cause Wolverines are the scariest animal.

Jenn (28:39.648)
And they're awkward to carry.

Doug Chiasson (28:55.269)
And, you know, the, the reality of certain trappers where they were carrying, you know, a 22 for dispatch because you want to make the smallest possible hole in that animal because you want to minimize damage to the fur and also something of a heavier caliber for self -defense.

Jenn (29:14.028)
Fair. Yeah, you would need both,

Doug Chiasson (29:15.971)
Yeah, so now you're getting off your snow machine with your giant backpack and your snares and you're setting tools and all this stuff and two long guns. And you have to be able to think in the moment, wait, which is on my right shoulder, which is on my left, the bear is coming across the beaver dam at me. Yeah. So it's, it's certainly one of those things where I've spoken to trappers that say that they will feel less safe.

Jenn (29:26.251)
No.

Jenn (29:32.864)
and a quick decision when you have an animal charging at you.

Doug Chiasson (29:44.125)
And, know, regardless of, of the, regardless of, you know, you can use bear spray instead of a handgun or you can do X instead of Y or whatever, they will feel less safe. And for people that are often alone in the middle of the woods, these are not the people that, are causing our crime statistics to go through the roof. Right. When you go to.

Jenn (29:59.148)
I think.

Jenn (30:11.702)
not even a little bit.

Doug Chiasson (30:12.901)
When you go to Fur Harvester's auction house in North Bay, which is the last remaining wild fur auction in North America, on the side of the building, there's a great big billboard that says, you know, kids who hunt fish and trap don't mug little old ladies. And it's like, it's, it's not a hundred percent true. It was probably like 98 % true. So, so that's the thing is that, you know, if our goal is to make society safer.

Jenn (30:31.778)
I'd say yeah, 98 .5 % true.

Doug Chiasson (30:39.993)
Why are we choosing to make a particular subset of society less safe?

Jenn (30:46.125)
for an ineffective

Doug Chiasson (30:49.145)
to make people feel good about themselves.

Jenn (30:50.686)
Yeah, that's it. And yeah, I can definitely see how having a pistol holstered when a bear is coming at you, it was so much easier to just drop what's in your hands and you know, they're properly trained so you know to draw your pistol like these people aren't going out there without training or anything like that.

Doug Chiasson (31:07.845)
No, that's it. And like I say, it is still a fairly small subset of of trappers that choose to do this. So it's not that even doing this removes, you know, 15 ,000 handguns from the landscape or something, you know, even if the government was just trying to run up the numbers, right? Like at the core of it, this affects maybe a thousand people, maybe a couple thousand people.

Jenn (31:31.904)
Yeah, that's true.

Jenn (31:35.628)
That's such a small, yeah, there should have been some sort of like amendment made or something to. Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (31:42.245)
And we tried, we, we certainly, you and I testified at the Senate committee. I met with, with members of the house committee and the Senate committee when it was, no, the house committee when it was still in the house. And then met with Senate committee members when it was in the Senate and said, you know, it's not that much to carve us out. And if you're going to carve out the Olympic sport shooters, you know, work with us to figure out how we get carved out. And there was.

Jenn (31:59.264)
Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (32:09.719)
little to no interest in seeing that happen from members who could actually affect change to the bill.

Jenn (32:14.892)
do something. Yeah, exactly. And I think it would have been such a smart exemption. Like it's so easy to defend that these people are out deep woods. I mean, you're restricted to what you can carry, when you can carry it.

Doug Chiasson (32:30.061)
And I mean, I had one conversation with, I mean, out of respect for them, I will leave them on name, but someone fairly senior positioned in the government. And I had gotten redirect, I had sent a letter and got redirected around to them and they said, we just, didn't even think of trappers. I'm like.

Jenn (32:49.602)
And it's insane. Like it's these people that just don't, cause we see that so often. mean, even with the organization that I work with, CSAAA, we recently spoke to an ARCAN because they were putting restrictions on gun powders and reactive targets. And when we spoke to them, we're like, why was the industry not consulted? Because I mean, you're not even thinking of the fact that people that do

historical reenactments, they don't generally have a pal, they've got antique firearms, they don't need a pal, but now they need a pal to buy the powders for their gun. And they're like, you know what, we didn't even think about the industry, we didn't even think about these reenactors, we didn't think about any of these people. And this is why actual consultation needs to be done.

Doug Chiasson (33:37.859)
Yeah. And, and like, I've, I've said this different. I mean, I four and a half years in, the belly of the beast working on parliament Hill. So like, I, I have some degree of empathy for the people that, that don't, you know, they asked the department, you know, what's going on and department says, here's who should be concerned. And you go out and talk to those people. And then that's, that's it. But for stuff like this, you have to go and shake some trees and really sort out like.

Jenn (33:55.894)
Yes.

Doug Chiasson (34:06.507)
Okay, this is affecting handgun users. Who are all of the handgun users in Canada? Like who is that? Who is every single person?

Jenn (34:16.746)
You need a list of every little niche that's going to be impacted.

Doug Chiasson (34:20.897)
Exactly. And you can then make a considered decision to not listen to them, frankly, but I would rather be in a position where someone tells me, we don't care about trappers. We thought about it. We thought that we understand this affects you, but we don't care. We have bigger priorities at play. This is our mandate. The voters told us they want this to happen.

Jenn (34:27.627)
like.

Jenn (34:46.05)
This is our mandate.

Doug Chiasson (34:50.873)
then for them to come back and like, we didn't even think of you guys.

Jenn (34:54.166)
Well, exactly, because then you're thinking, what if you did think about us, would there be an exemption?

Doug Chiasson (34:59.641)
Yeah, well, this is it. And I've dealt with this on, on some other legislation that's kicking around in the Senate right now around fur farming or that like, we'll have an effect on fur farming. Cause you know, we represent trappers and represent a seal hunt. also represent fur farmers and we represent the entire fur industry here in Canada. And you know, a couple pieces of legislation that

Jenn (35:19.733)
Yes.

Doug Chiasson (35:24.069)
you know, started as talking about zoos and very quickly got kind of expanded into talking about captivity of animals. I'm like, wait a minute, captivity of animals starts to, you know, now is, of great interest to us, but you brought forward this amendment at the committee stage after you had heard from witnesses. So when you were hearing from witnesses, this bill was only about in this particular case, bill S 15.

Jenn (35:37.218)
Good catch.

Doug Chiasson (35:53.525)
This bill was about great apes and elephants in zoos. So I didn't feel the need to write a letter to the committee and tell them that we are very concerned that this bill is going to hurt mink farming because mink are not elephants or great apes. But then they amend the bill to say, this is about captivity of potentially all non -domesticated animals. And, you know, there's, there is a certain amount of scientific debate as to whether

mink are domesticated or not. Our position certainly is that they are domesticated, but I would rather just have this be sorted out and have us go to committee and testify and say, here are our concerns.

Jenn (36:34.976)
Yeah. I think a point you made there is, also people need to kind of pay attention to what's happening because bills can change direction so quickly. think, this isn't going to impact me. And overnight there could be a slight change that just drastically changes your world.

Doug Chiasson (36:52.081)
yeah. It's, and I mean, and it's, hard for, for small organizations like ours. And I'm sure like yours that, know, at the end of the day, have like, depending on how you count us, like two and a half people in my organization. So we can't necessarily be monitoring every Senate committee meeting about elephants on the off chance that it may be affects us.

Jenn (37:17.78)
impact something you guys yeah who would have even thought that zoos elephants and zoos would start touching on to mink farms

Doug Chiasson (37:25.977)
Yeah. So, so like, these are, these are the wild and crazy ways that some of these things can, can take shape and, you know, monitoring the Canada Gazette and seeing, you know, species at risk listings. And it's like, wait, there's a new species at risk listing for the Eastern Wolf. Okay. Now I have to go talk to two provincial trappers associations and two provincial governments and write a letter and look at their letters. And, you know, if it wasn't for the fact that we saw this coming, we would be very much behind the eight ball.

So yeah, it's, you know, and then the folks on the other side of these debates are far better resourced and far better staffed than we are. So it's, it's kind of the interesting, one thing that I talk about a lot in kind of anti -fur movements and the evolution of the anti -fur movement.

Jenn (37:55.966)
Yeah, playing catch up and no, totally.

Jenn (38:06.815)
I know.

Jenn (38:16.446)
Yeah, which is something I really wanted to touch on because I used to like, I am an animal lover. but when I was younger, I was very young, so, so uninformed. And I was just like, my God, fur is like the worst thing. That's it. Exactly.

Doug Chiasson (38:18.607)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (38:29.477)
fur is murder, right? That's the, you know, it's, mean, I'm an animal lover too. I particularly love the ones that make nice looking coats. So it's, yeah, I know it's like, I'm a member of PETA people eating tasty animals. So, you know, the evolution of, of the anti -fur movement over say the last 50 years is you had a very, you know, insurgent grassroots level movement.

Jenn (38:37.45)
Yeah, you love them so much you wear them.

Doug Chiasson (38:58.863)
going up against the great fashion houses of the world and against multi -million, multi -billion dollar corporations. So it was really easy to be the plucky upstart animal rights NGO and talk about the big evil capitalists, the big evil corporate boardrooms and people smoking cigars and drinking champagne from crystal glasses.

Jenn (39:23.252)
All those, yeah, higher ups.

Doug Chiasson (39:28.495)
But like in today, it's kind of flipped that, know, PETA and IFAW and HSUS are like multi hundreds of millions, if not billion dollar corporations. You know, they're still not for profits or charities or both, but they're at the core of them. They're large multinational organizations and the people fighting against them are,

Jenn (39:41.27)
Mm -hmm.

Jenn (39:48.182)
The funding they receive is unreal.

Doug Chiasson (39:54.991)
trappers associations or small business owners, you people that own a family for shop that's been in their family for a few generations in Montreal. you know, they're not that I'm saying there aren't any big corporations still in fur. know, certainly the LVNH group, Louis Vuitton group still has, still has interests in fur and still produces a lot of great for garments, but it's, it's certainly here in North America. Anti -fur protesters are like,

attacking small business owners and attacking indigenous people, attacking women. It's really not, know, there's like really interesting ways to, you know, turn this back around on people and kind of make them question the way that they think about their own advocacy. you know, by and large, it's not

Jenn (40:30.23)
The wrong people.

Doug Chiasson (40:50.317)
It's not a hard and fast rule, but by and large, anti -fur people are, you know, progressive or left wing. And it's like, okay, so you're against fur. So you were against indigenous strappers making more money. They're like, well, no, I'm not against, I'm not against indigenous people. And they're like, okay, so you're anti -fur. So you're pro oil and gas. Well, what do you mean? Like, well, if I can't buy a coat made of fur, I have to buy a coat made of polyester or nylon or.

Jenn (40:57.216)
Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (41:19.501)
some kind of synthetic. And they're like, I'm not, not, I'm not oiling ass. They're like, well, you know, the modern anti -fur movement built its reputation by throwing red paint on, you know, women's fur coats. So you're anti -women. And they're like, well, no, I'm I'm not anti -woman. I'm like, so you're anti -Indigenous, you're anti -environment and you're anti -woman.

Jenn (41:20.169)
or petroleum.

Jenn (41:35.414)
Hmm.

Jenn (41:45.282)
Bro.

Doug Chiasson (41:47.257)
And they're like, wait a minute, maybe I'm pro -fur.

Jenn (41:48.866)
Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, if you break it down that way, I think that lets them sort of see the other side and the benefits to the fur industry.

Doug Chiasson (41:59.343)
Yeah. Yeah. Like it's, it's really, it's really interesting to watch. I will say that things in Canada, I mean, we, have the out always of like the heritage and history of Canada and, certainly the, you know, having a different environmental ethic and a different relationship with, with indigenous peoples than they do in the States. In the States, anti -fur, you know, anti -fur is violence.

Jenn (42:11.883)
Yes.

Doug Chiasson (42:28.291)
Like it's farm break -ins and it's smashing windows at furriers and…

Jenn (42:29.087)
Hey.

Jenn (42:34.112)
Really? I mean, I shouldn't be surprised because that is how, you know, the more far left protesters tend to react.

Doug Chiasson (42:41.669)
Yeah, like it's very violent. I'm not saying these things never happen in Canada, just they are rarer in Canada. But, you know, one of the big anti -fur groups in the States that's particularly targeting fur farming is called the final nail. It's like, you know, your imagery is a little bit on the nose there, but like the final nail in the coffin, like, okay, this is…

Jenn (42:46.71)
Yeah.

Jenn (43:05.818)
Yeah, that's so weird.

Doug Chiasson (43:08.387)
Like let's let's simmer down here for a minute and we can we can have a well reasoned debates about the pros and cons of fir farming. But like, but's not, this is a little bit creepy. You're taking pictures of people farms and yeah. And they're like posting obituaries of, you know, if someone who's like a prominent fir farmer passes away, they're like, Hey, one, one more down.

Jenn (43:10.206)
Exactly. That's not too aggressive.

Jenn (43:17.575)
Ugh. Yeah, but it gets on with morbid.

Jenn (43:29.627)
And like you see that so, so much, not just with fur, but with anything that the mainstream media government tries to tell people that they should hate. Like it almost gives them a pass to be just disgusting and aggressive and violent towards people that they just don't understand.

Doug Chiasson (43:51.233)
Exactly. And it's, you know, I have some of my members that are retailers or manufacturers. You know, they get people come into the store and, you know, give them shit for being, for selling fur. And they're like, come in and talk. Like, let's have a conversation. And you can, you can see me as a human being instead of some kind of evil creature that you've, you've, you've had this image implanted in your head of what I am and what I do.

Jenn (44:07.874)
like a real conversation.

Jenn (44:20.224)
And it totally, yeah, like you kind of touched on there, it totally dehumanizes that person.

Doug Chiasson (44:24.965)
Absolutely. we, you know, so much of my work is about de -stigmatizing fur and, trying to get people done, trying to get back to the point that we were at 40, 50 years ago. Like I saw a news report not long ago, and this has nothing to do with, with, with the fur business, but everything to do with the fur business. And it was about portage in Maine in Winnipeg and like the, you know, portage in Maine, can't cross the road at level. You have to go underneath and the government.

Jenn (44:31.744)
I love that.

Doug Chiasson (44:53.573)
built this like tunnel underneath Portage and Main in the seventies. And now it's every 10 years, there's a big debate about whether they should put a crosswalk back at Portage and Main or not. And I saw a news report from when they opened the tunnel under Portage and Main and it was, you know, CBC or CTV, whoever.

Jenn (45:01.378)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (45:17.335)
out there just like interviewing people on the street being like did you know that the tunnel is open today and you're not allowed to walk across the street anymore you know what do think of that and you know i'm watching this report and it's you know the first lady they interview is wearing a fox coat second lady the interview is wearing a shearling coat they interview a guy he's wearing a sheared beaver coat like everyone was wearing fur a hat or gloves with a with a cuff on them or

Jenn (45:42.145)
Huh.

Doug Chiasson (45:45.381)
coat or a vest or something. And it was just what people wore. Like these were normal people going to work, you know, at an insurance company or Manitoba Hydro or whatever. Like it's not like this was some kind of, of highfalutin event or this wasn't a trappers convention. were interviewing, like it was people on their way to work on a Monday and regular everyday people were wearing a lot of fur.

Jenn (45:54.217)
Hey!

Jenn (46:00.972)
We weren't trappers.

Jenn (46:07.818)
regular everyday people.

Doug Chiasson (46:14.277)
And was because you could buy it and it would last, right? It wasn't fast fashion. You you were dealing with people, a generation removed from the great depression. And it was here, you buy this code, it'll last you for 20 years, or it'll last you and you can give it to your daughter, give it to your son. know, well yeah, they're heirlooms in many cases. And you know, a lot of my members now are

Jenn (46:19.423)
Yeah.

Jenn (46:32.758)
Yeah, like her coats are passed down.

Doug Chiasson (46:41.167)
providing services to people like, take your grandmother's coat. You know, it's, it's old fashioned. Like it's, it's just not the current look, but bring in your grandmother's fur coat. can make some modifications. can remodel it. We can make it something that will work for you. Shorten it or make it a vest or, whatever, or we can make it into throw pillows. We can make it into a, into a blanket. We can make it into teddy bears for.

Jenn (46:50.305)
Yeah.

Jenn (46:55.709)
that's so nice.

Doug Chiasson (47:10.083)
kids for their, you know, your grandmother's grandkids. there's a lot of, a lot of great work that folks are doing to try and if nothing else, get those coats out of people's closets and find a way for people to get those jackets back out into the sunlight, whether it's sunlight as a teddy bear, sunlight as a bag or sunlight as a, as a vest or a hat.

Jenn (47:13.239)
wow. That's good idea.

Jenn (47:37.322)
Yeah, just so it's not collecting dust.

Doug Chiasson (47:38.725)
because it's just, yeah, it's just, it's sad that so many coats across the country are sitting at the back of someone's closet, that at some point someone paid good money for.

Jenn (47:49.132)
Definitely and that's a good quality piece of clothing that yeah could be repurposed and made into something more modern

Doug Chiasson (47:54.863)
exactly. You know, they were some kind of handmade item that was specialty artisan craft for the most part. You know, that's, that's something too, that I think a lot of people don't necessarily appreciate as much as I would like them to. I mean, there's a lot of things people don't appreciate as much as I would like them to. is, know, if you go to a furrier, like a real furrier here in Canada, and there's not nearly as many of them as there used to be. there's big parts of the country where there are none to be found, which is sad.

Jenn (48:01.079)
Yeah.

Jenn (48:10.964)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (48:24.483)
You know, the entire Maritimes, there is not a single operating furrier. Yeah. Like it's, it's truly disappointing. used to have like six in Nova Scotia alone, and now there's none in Nova Scotia. Yeah. None of Nova Scotia, none in PEI, none in New Brunswick. So, and I mean, I'm trying to think there's, there's certainly cities in Ontario that don't have them. Manitoba has, think.

Jenn (48:28.994)
Really?

Jenn (48:37.494)
Yeah, I kind of assumed that would be a big…

Doug Chiasson (48:52.483)
two in the entire province. Saskatchewan has like one in the entire province. So it's, really about, you know, those people were, you know, making these coats in the back room or the upstairs of the showroom. So if you wanted to, you could go in and go upstairs or go to the back and see how these things were getting made. And as with all things manufacturing, certainly manufacturing in Canada is not

as easy or cost effective as it once was. And fur, as with many other things, a lot of manufacturing has moved to other parts of the world, but there is still a core of knowledge here in Canada about working with fur, especially working with wild fur, that is an experience you're not really going to get with many other things in the course of your day. If you're buying from a local

Jenn (49:23.713)
Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (49:50.371)
cheese maker or local blacksmith or something maybe. But you know, to be able to actually go in the back and every furrier I know anyway, if someone comes into the store, they want to give them the tour and give, show them all about everything they do. And here's the showroom and here's some other thing, you know, what are you interested in? What could I put you in? Try this coat, try this coat, try this coat. yeah. Incredibly inviting people.

Jenn (50:03.645)
God.

Jenn (50:14.498)
Very inviting.

Doug Chiasson (50:18.341)
it's, it's really, you know, it's, it's, it's a shame to see how much things have declined because it is such a, a unique artisan experience that if more people were able to experience it, I think more people would be open to wearing, like they would have a true understanding of like the story of fur.

Jenn (50:46.248)
Yeah. Now, when you have to defend the fur trade, the fur institute industry, what arguments do you generally give people?

Doug Chiasson (50:59.781)
Yeah, I mean, it depends, depends what angle they're coming at us on, I guess is probably the best way to put it. if, if they're coming at us about trapping is inhumane and we shouldn't, you know, that that's terrible. You know, then I talk about the fact that we've invested, you know, $40 million over the last 40 years to, you know, research traps, develop traps, build better traps. So that was really the fur Institute started.

Jenn (51:02.53)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (51:28.549)
In the boom days of the fur business, back in the eighties, you know, we had 10 or 12 different national associations for fur in Canada. there's Canada mink breeders association, Canada Fox breeders association, fur council of Canada, the retail for council of Canada, the retail furriers guild, skin dealers of Canada, skin dealers of Quebec. some others probably that I'm, missing off the top of my head. and the fur Institute was this, this, you know,

Jenn (51:36.802)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (51:56.779)
little side project that was developed by Canada's wildlife ministers and the fur industry to develop research and develop traps because there was a lot of rabble rousing going on in Europe at the time about trapping and banning fur that came from trapping. So it was like, okay, let's get ahead of this.

And they create, there was some work that was going on already between the feds and the provinces. And they said, let's spin this off into a standalone organization. And just over the years since as we, as those 10 or 12 organizations have each kind of blank out of existence, we've taken on their mandate as, as, as kind of everything flows downhill to us because we're still here.

Jenn (52:48.626)
Wow. So you guys are quickly becoming like the national or might be the.

Doug Chiasson (52:53.207)
Yeah. Yeah. So last year, the fur council of Canada, which had been around since the sixties, they represented like the manufacturing and retail side of, of fur. they were a member of the Institute. The Institute was a member of the council. We worked closely together, but they got to a point where as an organization, they could no longer stay independent. So I negotiated with the board of, of the fur council that

they would fold the organization and invite all of their members to come join the Institute and that the Institute would then represent from, you know, trap line to runway, farm gate to showroom in, in fur business. So in Canada. So, you know, when people come at us about trapping, I can say we've got international, we've got an international agreement, the agreement, the international main trapping standards between us, European union and Russia. has very particular.

conditions for trapping of certain species and what makes you mate or not you mate.

Jenn (53:58.388)
Okay, so this research and work is going towards making sure like the traps are effective, humane. Amazing.

Doug Chiasson (54:04.165)
Absolutely. Yeah. So that's really what it is at its core. And the irony of talking about how the other side of our debate isn't interested in actually collaborating with us in any way, shape or form is the first kind of point person for the Fur Institute back in 1983, Neil Jotham, was the executive director of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies.

Jenn (54:29.735)
that's interesting.

Doug Chiasson (54:30.949)
Like he came from the animal welfare world. And like at that point, there was still like a meaningful conversation to be had about animal welfare. It wasn't just about animal rights. It was animal welfare. How do we make things better for animals? So we had different animal welfare organizations over the year as a part of and supporting the Fur Institute and our work. And then just over time, they got more and more.

Jenn (54:35.04)
the animal welfare organization.

Jenn (54:44.812)
Mm

Yeah.

Jenn (54:56.287)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (55:00.289)
extreme and eventually they all left. So if that's the angle they're coming at us, that's what I talk about. If they come at us that fur is a luxury item and we shouldn't be killing animals for just to create fancy looking coats for millionaires or whatever it is they say. Then I talk about the fact that high fur prices benefit farmers and trappers. They benefit small rural remote communities that

Jenn (55:16.406)
Yeah.

Jenn (55:29.366)
feeding the economy.

Doug Chiasson (55:30.967)
It feeds the economy in many communities, remote indigenous communities. is or has been the largest cash infusion into the communities is the money from trapping. So for a lot of communities, they've been really hurt by the downturn in the fur industry and downturn in seal industry. In some cases, communities, after the European Union banned

white coat seal products in the 80s. Communities in Labrador lost 30 to 40 % of their community wide income.

Jenn (56:10.998)
Wow, that is a huge hit.

Doug Chiasson (56:12.825)
Yeah, like that's, that's a startling number. And, and certainly we can point to similar downturns in, other parts of the country, you know, in the boreal forest, for remote reserves in Northern Ontario or Saskatchewan, you know, pick your, your spot that, know, as for prices decreased, we saw, you know, very unfortunate things happening in those communities because there was no longer, no longer this source of cash.

And no longer this industry that drew on, you know, traditional knowledge and traditional practices. You know, in a lot of ways it's, similar conversations about like the hunting outfitting operations, both here and, you know, I do a lot of international work as well. I'm the vice chair of the international council on game and wildlife conservation of their indigenous people and local communities.

Jenn (57:08.342)
Awesome.

Doug Chiasson (57:11.64)
working group. So I work a lot with folks in Sub -Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and talking about the impact on communities that taking away this cash infusion and the fact that cash equals boats, cash equals snow machines, cash equals gas and bullets, and that then gives

Jenn (57:16.769)
Wow.

Doug Chiasson (57:38.201)
communities the ability to reinforce their own food security and hunt and camp and, you know, steward traditional territories. You know, that's the stuff that starts to really throw a lot of, you know, well -meaning leftists. I'll put it that way. You know, not, everybody who disagrees with me is evil, just most of them. but the, the, the, you the reality being that when you start to break down, here are the real impact.

Jenn (57:41.719)
Hmm.

Jenn (57:57.077)
Yeah.

Jenn (58:00.822)
No, for sure.

Doug Chiasson (58:07.807)
the real fundamental and concrete impacts on communities. Then they go, wait a minute, I never thought of it that way.

Jenn (58:15.008)
Yeah, it's so easy to just say, you know, the fur trade is bad because you kill an animal, you skin it and my God, that's horrific. But they don't think past that. And like I said, they're not evil.

Doug Chiasson (58:24.707)
Yeah. And they're like, you don't, you don't eat it. They're like, you don't eat it. So it's bad. I'm like, well, how much, you know, there's plenty of animals we eat that we don't use the, we don't use the hide from or use the feathers from, I don't know a whole lot of people with, Canada goose stuffed, pillows. So it's, just, you're putting, you're putting a focus on one part of the animal over another. Yeah. And you know, the, mean,

Jenn (58:35.126)
We don't use the hide or anything.

Mm

Jenn (58:45.226)
No. No.

one waste to another. Yeah, totally.

Doug Chiasson (58:54.423)
Muskrat, I'm told, is good eating. Beaver is good eating. There is a food element to some of this. I'm not going to eat a mink, wild or farmed. There's certain animals that are very much survival situation only. But, you know,

Jenn (58:57.516)
Mm I've heard.

Jenn (59:04.97)
Okay.

Jenn (59:13.248)
Yeah, totally understand that. And I guess it would contribute to population control as well, because when you touched on muskrat, I'm thinking people used to hunt muskrat for fur around me. They don't anymore. And now there's so many muskrats, farmers pay people to go and, you know, take care of them because they're clogging up the tile drains, like they're destructive.

Doug Chiasson (59:31.973)
So yeah.

Doug Chiasson (59:36.803)
Yeah, well, this is the thing when people come at me with the argument of, can end trapping. We can never end trapping. We can end the commercial fur industry. I don't think we should, but it could happen that we would end the commercial fur industry. Same way we ended the commercial whaling industry. Same way at times we have ended the commercial seal industry. It's possible, but it won't be

Jenn (59:50.017)
Mm

Mm

Jenn (01:00:05.216)
Yeah, not a good idea, possible.

Doug Chiasson (01:00:06.639)
but it's not a good idea. Because, we've seen this from, you we have examples of this in Europe where, I last year France killed more fur bearers than Canada did.

Jenn (01:00:21.974)
Really?

Doug Chiasson (01:00:22.361)
They have invasive muskrat, invasive mink, invasive fox. They kill hundreds of thousands of fur bearers every year in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain. We collaborate with some of these countries to make sure that they're using humane traps in their population control exercises. But all of those animals are going to the landfill or the incinerator.

Jenn (01:00:41.442)
good, okay.

Jenn (01:00:50.38)
Because it's only population control. can't use it.

Doug Chiasson (01:00:52.773)
because it's only for population control purposes. So you never get rid of trapping. There will always be reasons to trap animals.

Jenn (01:00:57.548)
So these.

So I wonder if these anti trappers, anti fur realize that these animals are still going to die. We're just not going to use their fur.

Doug Chiasson (01:01:06.68)
Yeah. Well, and then the, like the perverse part of it is when that happens, like right now, I will say a significant portion of, I won't say all of the cost of, you know, trapping of animals for infrastructure protection, wildlife protection, what have you. A significant portion of that cost is born by the global fashion industry.

The people that are buying the coats and buying the bags and buying the accessories, you know, they're paying in certain cases for, you know, beavers that would have flooded a intersection in town or muskrats that were, that were burrowing out under the pilings of a bridge or coyotes or wolves that were killing sheep. There's a certain portion of that cost that is being borne by voluntarily by

Jenn (01:01:47.937)
Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (01:02:04.793)
the international fashion, garment and accessories industry. Without that, that cost will be entirely borne by the taxpayer and the firm.

Jenn (01:02:09.484)
That's true.

Jenn (01:02:19.178)
Yeah, that's another huge, huge point, I think, for sure.

Doug Chiasson (01:02:22.565)
So like that's, that's the scary part. You know, we're, you know, the amount of money that CN and CP and Manitoba Hydro and Hydro One and other power generators spend per year on, you know, animal control on, on wildlife management is, is still fairly large. But if we were at a point where muskrats were going for $10 each,

Jenn (01:02:42.186)
Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (01:02:51.621)
or $15 each, they probably wouldn't have to pay a whole lot of money for Muscrack Control.

Jenn (01:02:58.112)
That's so true. Yeah, because muskrat's like not worth a whole lot now, right?

Doug Chiasson (01:03:03.749)
No, mean, Muscat's worth almost nothing right now, unfortunately. Coyotes during the boom of coyotes, you know, 10 years ago when Canada Goose was still using coyote fur and that 900 companies that made knockoffs of Canada Goose were all using coyote on their ruffs. There weren't a whole lot of farmers in the prairies who had to pay trappers.

Jenn (01:03:07.031)
Wow.

Jenn (01:03:19.298)
Yeah.

Doug Chiasson (01:03:29.029)
Because trappers knew they could get $100 or $150 for each one of them coyotes, were going to farmers begging for access to their land. Now that a good, you know, a great Western coyote is going for $40 or $50, I'm sure there's a lot of farmers in the prairies that are having to pay trappers to come in to keep coyotes off their sheep or off their…

Jenn (01:03:29.164)
yeah.

Doug Chiasson (01:03:58.319)
cows or what have you. So if we can, if we can let rich people pay for all these things, cause they want a nice coat, that's great. Yeah. If we could distribute that cost vault to people who will voluntarily shoulder it and that, that then supports trappers and supports, you know, the auction house in North Bay and supports dressers and dyers and supports manufacturers, you know, all through the value chain. That's the best case scenario for everybody.

Jenn (01:04:04.034)
Well, why not? Yeah, exactly. It benefits everybody.

Jenn (01:04:14.518)
Yeah.

Jenn (01:04:28.598)
Definitely, yeah. And I mean, it's true what you said. I know people that used to trap or had family that trapped and they just don't anymore because they're like, it's not worth it.

Doug Chiasson (01:04:39.329)
Or like we're also going through, and the States has already gone through this for the most part. And it's starting here in Canada as well, is people that are trappers for like personal wildlife management reasons. That they want to trap raccoons on their property because they want more turkeys, or they want to trap foxes for more partridge, you know, insert, small animal for save smaller animal.

Jenn (01:04:54.581)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (01:05:09.097)
Or, you know, if you're getting a West trap and wolves for elk purposes, stuff like that. In the States, that's in certain parts of the States. Anyway, that's the predominant reason people trap. And if any of their stuff makes it to the market, you know, some of it, some great, some of it does, some of it doesn't. but that's starting here. When I did my Trapper Ed course here in Nova Scotia last year,

Jenn (01:05:14.249)
Yeah.

Jenn (01:05:22.166)
Okay.

Jenn (01:05:26.818)
great.

Doug Chiasson (01:05:35.321)
You know, there were a few guys in the room that they said, you know, my interest is predator control. and a few other guys that were like, my interest is, you know, animal damage control that I can do this and then go get my nuisance wildlife officer ticket and then, you know, make a bit extra cash on the side from the municipality that they'll all be on the list and the municipality can call me and I can go, you know, take beavers out of a culvert or something.

Jenn (01:05:40.918)
Okay.

Doug Chiasson (01:06:04.069)
Instead of, you know, 20 years ago or 40 years ago, you know, everybody in that room, well, why do you want to be a trapper? Well, I want to put up for her. Yeah, there's money in it. There's, there's, there's a reason to do this. And the reason is dollars and cents. And the other stuff is, is tertiary. the animal damage control stuff is like, it's, you know, bonus, you know, wolves are worth a couple hundred dollars. And bonus on top of that is that there's no wolves to eat my elk.

Jenn (01:06:12.016)
Mm There's money in it, right?

Jenn (01:06:32.566)
Yeah, exactly. The predator control paired with the actual fur money.

Doug Chiasson (01:06:34.297)
Yeah, so.

Doug Chiasson (01:06:38.201)
Yeah, it was like, was, it was a great way to float the cost of all of these other things.

Jenn (01:06:44.15)
Definitely. Dang, that was very educational. feel like we're running out of time, but we're probably going to have to record again at some point because yeah, this is just, there's just so much that people don't know about the first side and the seal side and the trapping side.

Doug Chiasson (01:07:00.217)
Yeah. Well, and, know, the one thing that I've been trying to make an effort to do, especially in the two and half years I've been at the Institute is, you know, trappers are the unloved stepchild of the outdoors community, right? That, you know, we're, kind of off in our own corner, doing our own thing. And, know, you, you might give us a call if you got wolves knocking down your elk herd or.

Jenn (01:07:14.496)
Yeah.

Othered by the…

Doug Chiasson (01:07:25.413)
something, you know, it's, it's not as, and some of our provincial associations are doing great jobs of building really strong relationships with, you know, outfitters associations and others. And, you know, I would like us to get to the point where we're, you know, shoulder to shoulder on a lot of these issues with the broader hunting, broader outdoors community, and that we can get past, you know, some of the, some of the,

ground level conflicts, which are inevitable between any user groups. Same as conflict between out fitters and resident hunters or resident hunters from over here and resident hunters from over there or anybody against anybody. Exactly. So that's the, that's something that, you know, things like the outdoor symposium that, that Blaine puts on is a great opportunity to do that. To get in a room with.

Jenn (01:07:59.234)
Absolutely.

Jenn (01:08:07.25)
Anybody against anybody.

Jenn (01:08:20.413)
Yes, you can make those connections.

Doug Chiasson (01:08:23.107)
Yeah, to get in a room with a bunch of other organizations from across the country and say, Hey, we're, we're here now.

Jenn (01:08:30.006)
Yep. No, definitely. It's just getting the name out there and raising the awareness. And I mean, all of these organizations, we've all got, you know, very, very similar end goals, very similar ways of operating and thinking. So.

Doug Chiasson (01:08:45.449)
yeah, I would love us to get to a point where all we have left are the like a couple of little things we disagree on, because we've already accomplished all the things we agree on.

Jenn (01:08:56.244)
Exactly. And I mean, I feel like the small things that organizations might disagree on aren't really that big of a deal.

Doug Chiasson (01:09:03.781)
No, like that's what I mean is like if we ever get to the point of having accomplished the 98 .5 % of other things that we all agree on and all that was left was the 1 .5 then we would all be, I think we would all happily have that conversation, that debate at that point, because we'd be sitting on a long list of successes.

Jenn (01:09:10.154)
Yeah. Then that is.

Jenn (01:09:21.686)
Totally.

Jenn (01:09:25.652)
Yeah, that would be nice. One day. Maybe. Yeah, I'd say three years. We'll get there. Well, thank you so much for doing this. This is amazing. Like so helpful. And yeah, I really hope that I know I got a lot out of this conversation. I'm almost certain anyone listening will. Anything you want to leave us off with and where can we find you online?

Doug Chiasson (01:09:27.365)
Someday. We'll give it couple years.

Doug Chiasson (01:09:50.285)
Yeah. I mean, I'll leave folks with the best thing you can do to support wildlife management is buy a fur coat. And if you care about the oceans, buy some seal products. But, and if you're, if you're looking for how and where to do that, you can find out at fur .ca or canadiansealproducts .com. You know, find us at, we're the Fur Institute of Canada, or maybe just Fur Institute of Canada on Instagram. We've started getting our Instagram presence.

back up and running in the last couple of months. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter. Where else are we? We have a podcast, the Truth About Fur podcast. Yeah, you can find that in the Hunter Conservationist feed at Blood Origins Canada. So it's us and Mark, myself and Mark Hall, we're the co -hosts of it over at Blood Origins Canada. And it's, we're about once a month right now.

Jenn (01:10:30.05)
I wanna check that podcast out, yeah.

Jenn (01:10:37.493)
cool.

Doug Chiasson (01:10:49.633)
And kind of just talking about the news of the day in fur and what the Institute is doing, what's in the news, what we think about it. And, you know, there's a bit of science, a bit of politics, a bit of interesting stuff that's going on. So if, if folks have, an hour to spare after, after they listened to the horrible people podcast, they can check out truth book for.

Jenn (01:11:14.398)
I it. I'm going to put all of those links in the little description section so people will be able to go right over there and find you. Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Doug Chiasson (01:11:22.831)
Perfect.

All right, thank you.