Fur trade Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of martens, beavers, wolves, foxes, squirrels and hares. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Russians began to settle in Siberia, a region rich in many mammal fur species, such as Arctic fox, lynx, sable, sea otter and stoat (ermine). In a search for the prized sea otter pelts, first used in China, and later for the northern fur seal, the Russian Empire expanded into North America, notably Alaska. From the 17th through the second half of the 19th century, Russia was the world's largest supplier of fur. The fur
California Fur Rush California Fur Rush Before the 1849 California Gold Rush, American, English and Russian fur hunters were drawn to Spanish (and then Mexican) California in a California Fur Rush, to exploit its enormous fur resources. Before 1825, these Europeans were drawn to the northern and central California coast to harvest prodigious quantities of southern sea otter ("Enhydra lutris nereis") and fur seals ("Callorhinus ursinus"), and then to the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta to harvest beaver ("Castor canadensis"), river otter ("Lontra canadensis"), marten, fisher, mink, gray fox ("Urocyon cinereoargenteus"), weasel, and harbor seal. It was