NAFA North American Fur Auction 2016

Our trappers carry a licence that allows them to trap and euthanize fur-bearing animals. This allows Hawkeye Bird and Animal Control to offer you permanent and guaranteed results to remove your pest animal or wildlife. But, it is not all for waste. The pelts or fur of raccoons, squirrels, muskrats, foxes and many more animals are a highly sought after export from North America and in fact, Canada’s biggest export to China.  

Hawkeye works with the North American Fur Auction or NAFA for short, to manage the purchase and auctions of our fur to buyers around the world. With the biggest purchasers being China and Russia, fur is becoming increasing popular in the fashion industry.

NAFA is actually the oldest fur auction house in the world starting out in 1670 as part ofThe Hudson Bay Company (HBC) which was created to offer fine furs to the public. It remained HBC until 1992 when it became NAFA and still resides in Toronto, ON with sorting facilities in the US and Poland. Today, it remains Canada’s oldest incorporated company and the 7th oldest company in the world.

Fur auctions typically occur about four times per year. We clean and prep the pelts for tanning at Hawkeye. We must take extra caution with animals who carry rabies since rabies is carried in the saliva of animals like raccoons, it could still be present on their fur.  By the time the pelts are processed there is no risk of rabies being carried on the fur. We provide our pelts to NAFA on a consignment basis which are then graded and sold to the fashion world, including the services industry like police and military.

After the auction, unsold pelts are used as blankets and donated to communities in the Northern Territories.  Dan Frankian, owner of Hawkeye and members of his team attended a fur auction. You’ll find some pictures of the pelts and get an idea of how renewable and expansive this industry this really is.

For more information about NAFA specifically, you can visit their website at http://www.nafa.ca/