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Mickey Williamson of Williamson Silver Black Fox Ranch
on the Kenai Peninsula holding a prize breeding fox, ca. 1929. |
Photos copyrighted, not for reproduction Jule Loftus, Territorial Veterinarian, (far right) with
fur farmer George Goshaw (far left) Shishmaref, 1932. |
 James Leekley, director of the Alaska Experimental Farm at Petersburg holding a mink. Photo taken from Agroborealis, October 1970. |
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A FEW FACTS FROM THE BOOK: Russians transplanted arctic blue foxes from Siberia to Attu Island in 1749, just seven years after Bering's Alaska discovery voyage. Through the years Alaska's fur farmers raised foxes, mink, marten, otters, chinchilla rabbits, beaver, muskrat, lynx, true chinchillas, European fitch, raccoons and skunks. In 1930 when the population of Alaska was 60,000, there were more than 700 fur farms in the territory.. As early as 1811, Aleuts warned that foxes were killing off migratory birds which nested in the Aleutians. More than 100 years later the Bureau of Biological Survey came to the same conclusion. |