The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-11
Foxes and ShunkS Are Now
 Raised in Captivity
BOTH HARD TO HANDLE
Attempts to Raise Beavers In CaptiV- lty Have So Far Been Unsuccess- fuI-Foxes Raised in the
 Aleutian Islands.
BY FREDERIC J. HAskIN.

first great American fortune, the hunting of animals for their belts has been a , business which has tempted the adven- turous and prohted the thrifty. But it remained for the Yankees to establish an artificial source of fur supply by rearing animals especially for their pelts. There are now perhaps fifty successful fox farms on which are propagated and rear ed the valuable blue fox. Skunk farms have been started in several states, and few of them have been measurably successful In Alaska experiments are being made in rearing bears for their skins Mlnks, beavers and otters are the subjects of experimental fur farming also, but on a very limited scale.
 Of all those experiments, blue fox farm ing has been the only one which has de- veloped Into a considerable industry. On some thirty-fve of tho bleak and barren islands of the Aleutian chain, stretching from Alaska almost to Asia, fox farms are successfully conducted. On a some- what smaller scale profitable fox farms are to be found on islands belonging to Maine, and there Is at least one in the
 interior of Vermont. Colorado also has a | islands, which are almost wholly unpro- ductive, are leased by the fur growers from the government for an annual rent al of about s10O each. pair of blue foxes may be purchased for $50 to $2OO | according to size and age. One of the | most successful preserves was started with 104 foxes and in five years there were 12l5 animals on the island. period of ten or twelve years Is allowed before a profitable return is to be expectedj. | The blue fox Is very valuable animal, a single skin being worth from $25 to $50 | on the London market Its coat is of a gray-blue color and quite fine and thick. It is more easily handled than other va l rieties of foxes, becoming almost tame | In the Alaskan island farms the foxes are led on corn meal mush made with l blubber and fish oil, and they will re- l spond to calls at feeding time much as any domesticated animals. They are ex- tremely suspicious of strangers, however. and are not inclined to seek the company or their keepers except when being fed.
 The foxes are trapped in boxes so that those to be kept for breeding will not be injured The carefully selected breeding foxes are marked by clipping their tails. once breeding fox has entered a tran and been liberated be becomes a nuisance | to the keeprs, for, knowing that no harm VIII come to him, he springs every trap he can find as soon as it is set in nrdar to get the food with which it is halted me rare silver fox, whose black pelt l is literally worth its weight in gold, has peen the supJect of experimentation, but | 9o lar without success. The silver fox is .n iae'' put color phase of the red fox, i anu In domestic propagation there ia n | feVersion to the common tyne Tho n,o1a ] iS very leroclous and will destroy the 1 young as soon as they are born Tba same thing is true of the valuable cross loX, highly prized for his markings If ID ID peieVea oy many fur trade experts that ! u IS perfectly feasible to propa gate tho | precious Russian sable in the Alaslfa n lsiancs, and some small experiments have 1 been undertaken
 On each fox farm island there is a keeper and two or three native assista nts. most or the food supply comes from the | surrounding waters and there Is little a,, pense attached to the undertaking ,rin,a is required, however, to get a colony os | loXes large enough to spare many of | lnem to be killed for their belts Vhila the iur or foxes raised in captivity is of me quality, the animal suffers bv ina change rom his natural conditions. and | In the New England preserves has been attacked by a parasite which greatly l weakens him.
 ] halsing foxes is not dangerous busi- l ness, but the same cannot be said of | skunk farming. pr. Elliott Coues. the | great naturalist. says: "To depend upon the good will of so irritable and so for 1 midable beast, whose temper may be | l ic the enjoyment of a cigar in a powder | magazine Not only has the skunk a | powerful means of self defense which has | brought him into malodorous infamy. but his bite is extremely dangerous, being | hable to causa disease closely akin to | hydrophobia and equally as fatal Not 1 withstanding the difficulties of the busi- ness, skunk farming has been tried in several of the states and Is now being | carried on in Ohio, Indiana and the h. dian Territory. if not in other places.
 About eight years ago a newspaper | story intended to be taken as a joke | started hundreds of people to inquiring about skunk farming, and induced many to actually engage in the business. This | story purported to come from a high | official In the department of agriculture It declared that with a start of twenty | slunks the natural increase In four year l would be 37S0,0O0 skunlxs, worth a dollar
 
 | for oil made from the fat. Colonel Sell | CTS never thought of scheme in which | there were so many millions
 1 One company formed In Pennsylvania spent $25, 900 on skunk farming experi- | ment based upon these remarkable figures, | but had to give it up as losing invest ment. Others went into the business on a | smaller scale and have continued, some | of them making a fair return on their money, The Pennsylvania experiment started out with 300 skunks in twenty acre enclosure. The promoters expected | to have 200 animals by the next year, but instead there was decrease. This led to a closer study of the habits of the animals, and they were found to be canni- bals. The male skunks ate the young ones almost as soon as they were born.
 The female and their young were then separted from the males. when 1t was discovered that they ate each others broods. The only successful method found was to put each female and her semi-annual litter in separate enclosure, which entailed an expense altogether too great for the return in belts and oil. This