Rise of oil left traditional industries behind
Published: Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 4:37 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 4:37 p.m.
Tab Pitre has been working as a fur trader for most of his life. It’s a business he inherited from his father.
“My daddy did this all my life. He was raised a trapper. They were there before the nutria even showed up,” he said.
In those days, trapping and trading furs was a huge business — Pitre said he remembers starting on his own in 1974, when he estimates more than two million pelts traded hands in the Houma-Thibodaux area, flowing through a complex web of traders.
Today, Pitre, 51, may be the only significant trader left in the area, trafficking in what he estimates was about 100,000 furs a year.
“I’m the only one left in my family,” Pitre said. “All my brothers and sisters all moved on. They all work on boats.”
That, in short, seems to be the story of the industry’s decline in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. As the oil industry came to dominance, locals traded their nutria traps and, in some cases, shrimp nets, for oil-platform hard hats.
Paul Leslie, a history professor at Nicholls State University, said the nation’s hunger for oil and gas has transformed Houma-Thibodaux area over the past few decades.
“It’s all about economics,” Leslie said. “In 1928, we had something like 18 million automobiles. By the 1950s, we were selling between 12 and 14 million a year.”
Before the oil boom, Leslie said the region was a sleepy community focused on furs and the sugar industry — Southdown Sugars in Houma was one of the largest employers.
Now, offshore oil and gas exploration drilling and production dominates the local economy — Leslie estimates that about 70 percent of the region’s economy is dedicated to oil, gas, and all the businesses that surround it.
Those oil jobs offered steady work and a regular, generous salary.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, rig operators make a mean salary of $59,580. The mean for Louisiana is $61,050, second only to California’s $69,360.
While Pitre might earn that kind of living as a trader, such a salary is out of reach for a trapper in the field, who makes money based on how the fur market swings and what quality of pelts he can find.
On an oil rig, a worker can expect a standard two-weeks on, two-weeks off schedule with 12-hour shifts — and a pay-check they can count on every month.
Work in the fur industry is less regular and usually less lucrative. Pitre said that means fewer young people are picking up the trade.
“You don’t have any newcomers who come in,” he said. “It’s too much hard work.”
Pitre describes a trapper’s life as rough and tumble, but close to nature. They scour the swamps for nutria, raccoons and the occasional beaver.
“In the sunny days, they would take the skins outside and put them up on racks,” he said. “They would sleep under the skins as they were drying. And you know what? They were happy. It was a good life, even if it wasn’t always easy.”
Decades ago, Pitre couldn’t count the number of trappers who would sell him furs. Now, he estimates there are fewer than 20 in Lafourche Parish and fewer than 30 in Terrebonne. Most of those trappers are also shrimpers or fishermen who seek furs during the off season for extra cash.
“There is no one left who goes out to the camp and stays the whole three or four months of the season,” Pitre said. “Used to have one guy from Galliano who used to do it, but then the saltwater intruded on his property and all the nutria moved up north, so he retired.”
Pitre said he can count the number of fur traders like himself on one hand.
“There are maybe four of us left in the state,” Pitre said. “The only other major one works out of Lafayette.”
Pitre said he doubts the area’s fur industry will survive for many more generations.
“I honestly don’t think many people are going to miss it,” he said. “You just don’t have anyone excited about it anymore.”
Staff Writer Matthew Albright can be reached at 448-7635 or at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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