Abstract
THE predominance in the news of political activities in Manchoukuo tends to obscure the fact that it supports an active Institute of Scientific Research, the latest publication of which describes one of the staple industries of Manchuria, the fur trade (Rep. Inst. Sci. Res., Manchoukuo, 3, 227; July 1939). In a lengthy paper W. N. Schernakow describes very fully, from his own journeys in Manchuria and from the contributions of other writers, various aspects of the extensive fur-trade. The majority of the fur-bearing animals are captured by means of snares, traps, pits, as well as by firearms and poison, but sometimes hunting dogs and birds of prey are employed, and one of the illustrations actually shows a hunter in the Barga using bow and arrow. The furs are collected locally, and ultimately most find their way to the fur-market at Harbin. Here in the season 1937–38, 1,217,169 furs were sold, an increase of more than a quarter million oversales of the previous year. The greater number represents five relatively common species: Tolai hare (Lepus tolai) 500,000; rat (Rattus norvegicus caraco) 200,000; Sansing squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris mantchuricus) and yellow ermine (Mustela alpina raddei) 100,000 each; and kolinsky (Mustela sibirica of various subspecies) 130,000. The rare skins represented by ten or fewer individuals at the fur-market were wolverine (Gulo gulo) and bear (Ursus mantchuricus) 10 each; leopard 5 and Manchurian tiger (Tigris tigris coreensis) 4. The author regards the preservation of woodland as the surest way of preserving the fur-bearing animals, and he points out that the Chinese destroy not only woodland but even brush-wood wherever they settle.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fur-trade in Northern Manchuria. Nature 144, 936 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144936a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144936a0