Registered Alaska Native artists can keep selling fur on Etsy

Alaska Native artists registered with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board will be able to keep selling fur, taxidermy, and byproduct items on Etsy, after Sen. Dan Sullivan negotiated an exemption to a company-wide animal-product ban set to take effect August 11.

The carve-out has a sharp edge: it applies only to registered sellers. An Alaska Native craftsperson who isn't listed with the board would still be cut off after August 11 — which makes getting registered a real deadline, not a formality. The board keeps a public directory of Native-owned arts and crafts businesses that determines who qualifies.

Sullivan's office reached Etsy's CEO in May, arguing the ban collided with federal law — the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which lets Alaska Natives sell authentic handicrafts and clothing from lawfully harvested animals, and the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. He's cleared this kind of thing before, he says: a 2018 Etsy ban that swept up sealskin and ivory work, and a 2019 dispute over Facebook Marketplace's rules on animal-part art.

"We've secured another significant win for Alaska Native craftsmen," Sullivan said, calling the work a tradition thousands of years old.