Evaluation of the Klondike Soft Gold Program /

Administered by the Yukon Trappers Association (YTA), the broad intent of the KSG initiative has been to revitalize the fur industry in Yukon, relying in particular on the marketing of a product brand. [...] In the absence of any previously established process to monitor the effects and success of the KSG Program, it was necessary to conduct this evaluation by a combination of a) retrospective analysis of “traditional” government trapping data (harvest and value patterns), and b) subjective interviews to document the impressions and opinions of people theoretically, actually, and ideally involved (i.e [...] The continuing importance of beavers and the rise to dominance of coyotes in the harvest is unique to Alberta in these comparisons, and is in part refl ective of habitat differences (more deciduous woodlands and open country). [...] Figure 4 completes the long-term picture of Yukon’s fur harvest, showing the composition (pelt numbers and revenues) of the “other” species category, i.e., the eight Yukon furbearers in addition to the six primary species identifi ed in Figure 3. For convenience, they will be referred to as “secondary” species in the remainder of this document. [...] HARVESTS 14 KLONDIKE SOFT GOLD PROGRAM EVALUATION WILDEOR WILDLIFE RESEARCH & CONSULTING Figure 4, cont’d REVENUES In regard to revenues, mink and red fox were demonstrably the most important of the secondary species through the 1960s, but the proportion of revenue attributable to wolf pelt sales began to increase in the 1970s and has dominated since the 1990s (nearly 80% of the total “other speci