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Swan Trade
In addition to their trade in beaver fur, the Hudson's Bay Company also traded swan Swans are birds of the family (biology), family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form t ...s, and sometimes geese, for their skins and quills in the 18th and 19th centuries; the skins were then sent to Europe. The population of trumpeter swans east of the Rockies in the 1600s was estimated at 130,000.Houston, C. S., Ball, T. F., & Houston, M. (2003). ''Appendix E: The nineteenth-century trade in swan skins and quills.'' In Eighteenth-century naturalists of Hudson Bay. Montreal, Que: McGill-Queen's University Press. Annually, between three and five thousand swans were killed, which greatly contributed to the decline of trumpeter and tundra swans to the point where they were very scarce in the interior of North America. The skins were marke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaver
Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-largest living rodents after the capybaras. They have stout bodies with large heads, long chisel-like incisors, brown or gray fur, hand-like front feet, webbed back feet and flat, scaly tails. The two species differ in the shape of the skull and tail and fur color. Beavers can be found in a number of freshwater habitats, such as rivers, streams, lakes and ponds. They are herbivorous, consuming tree bark, aquatic plants, grasses and sedges. Beavers build dams and lodges using tree branches, vegetation, rocks and mud; they chew down trees for building material. Dams impound water and lodges serve as shelters. Their infrastructure creates wetlands used by many other species, and because of their effect on other organism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay (department store), Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay ( in French). After incorporation by Kingdom of England, English royal charter in 1670, the company functioned as the ''de facto'' government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years until the HBC sold the land it owned (the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin, known as Rupert's Land) to Canada in 1869 as part of the Deed of Surrender, authorized by the Rupert's Land Act 1868. At its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English- and later British North America, British-controlled North America. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from furs t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swan
Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae. There are six living and many extinct species of swan; in addition, there is a species known as the coscoroba swan which is no longer considered one of the true swans. Swans usually mate for life, although "divorce" sometimes occurs, particularly following nesting failure, and if a mate dies, the remaining swan will take up with another. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight. Etymology and terminology The English word ''swan'', akin to the German , Dutch and Swedish , is derived from Indo-European root ' ('to sound, to sing'). Young swans are known as '' cygnets'' or as '' swanlings''; the former derives via Old French or (diminutive suffix et 'little') from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goose
A goose (plural, : geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family (biology), family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera ''Anser (bird), Anser'' (the grey geese and white geese) and ''Branta'' (the black geese). Some other birds, mostly related to the shelducks, have "goose" as part of their names. More distantly related members of the family Anatidae are swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, which are smaller. The term "goose" may refer to either a male or female bird, but when paired with "gander", refers specifically to a female one (the latter referring to a male). Young birds before fledging are called goslings. The List of collective nouns, collective noun for a group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; when in flight, they are called a skein, a team, or a wedge; when flying close together, they are called a plump. Etymology The word "goose" is a direct descendant of,''*ghans-''. In Germanic languages, the root gave Old E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trumpeter Swan
The trumpeter swan (''Cygnus buccinator'') is a species of swan found in North America. The heaviest living bird native to North America, it is also the largest extant species of waterfowl, with a wingspan of 185 to 250 cm (6 ft 2 in to 8 ft 2 in). It is the American counterpart and a close relative of the whooper swan (''Cygnus cygnus'') of Eurasia, and even has been considered the same species by some authorities. By 1933, fewer than 70 wild trumpeters were known to exist, and extinction seemed imminent, until aerial surveys discovered a Pacific population of several thousand trumpeters around Alaska's Copper River. Careful reintroductions by wildlife agencies and the Trumpeter Swan Society gradually restored the North American wild population to over 46,000 birds by 2010. Description The trumpeter swan is the largest extant species of waterfowl, and both the heaviest and longest native bird of North America. Adults usually measure long, though large males can exceed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tundra Swan
The tundra swan (''Cygnus columbianus'') is a small swan of the Holarctic. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species: Bewick's swan (''Cygnus bewickii'') of the Palaearctic and the whistling swan (''C. columbianus'') proper of the Nearctic. Birds from eastern Russia (roughly east of the Taymyr Peninsula) are sometimes separated as the subspecies ''C. c. jankowskii'', but this is not widely accepted as distinct, with most authors including them in ''C. c. bewickii''. Tundra swans are sometimes separated in the subgenus ''Olor'' together with the other Arctic swan species. Bewick's swan was named in 1830 by William Yarrell after the engraver Thomas Bewick, who specialised in illustrations of birds and animals. ''Cygnus'' is the Latin for "swan", and '' columbianus'' comes from the Columbia River, the type locality. Description ''C. columbianus'' is the smallest of the Holarctic swans, at in length, in wingspan and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rupert’s Land
Rupert's Land (french: Terre de Rupert), or Prince Rupert's Land (french: Terre du Prince Rupert, link=no), was a territory in British North America which comprised the Hudson Bay drainage basin; this was further extended from Rupert's Land to the Pacific coast in December 1821. It was established to be a commercial monopoly by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), based at York Factory. The territory operated for 200 years from 1670 to 1870. Its namesake was Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who was a nephew of Charles I and the first governor of HBC. The areas formerly belonging to Rupert's Land lie mostly within what is today Canada, and included the whole of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southern Nunavut, and northern parts of Ontario and Quebec. Additionally, it also extended into areas that would eventually become part of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. The southern border west of Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains was the drainage divide between t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fur Trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued. Historically the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, and the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands. Today the importance of the fur trade has diminished; it is based on pelts produced at fur farms and regulated fur-bearer trapping, but has become controversial. Animal rights organizations oppose the fur trade, citing that animals are brutally killed and sometimes skinned alive. Fur has been replaced in some clothing by synthetic imitations, for example, as in ruffs on hoods of parkas. Continental fur trade Russian fur trade Before the European colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur pelts to Western Europe and parts of Asia. Its trade developed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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