The journey of searching for the most expensive feathers in the world began.. a kilo of thousands of dollars (photos)
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On an island in the Bay of Predavijordur off the west coast of Iceland, a search for soft-fluffy Arctic eider ducks is in search of a kilogram of feathers that sell for thousands of dollars and are the best quilts in the world.
As every summer, nearly 400 Icelandic farmers rummage through a boulder, sand or tall grass to find a few handfuls of gray feathers for this species of Arctic duck that has been nesting since May in this sparsely populated and wonderful seascape.
"When there are eggs, we only take part of the fluff. And when the eiders leave the nest, we take everything," explains Erla Frederiksdottir, president of King Elder, one of the country's leading exporters of feathers.
The polar eider duck, one of the seabirds in the polar regions, leaves behind a natural treasure for those who seek warmth during cold weather, as its feathers are made of a type of natural fiber that is considered one of the warmest in the world and is characterized by its lightness and extreme ability to thermal insulation at the same time.
The female of these birds, with dark brown feathers surrounded by black, separates the fluff from her chest to spread her nest in order to isolate it during the incubation period.
The production of a kilogram of feathers requires the use of about sixty nests, and making each quilt requires between 600 and 1600 grams of these feathers, depending on the required quality.
The global yield of this very luxurious product does not exceed four tons, three of which come from Iceland, which by far leads the list of countries producing this feather compared to Canada and other countries close to the Arctic.
On the island of Bjarnar, residents of many generations are busy spotting any trace of nests, in a local tradition that likely began in Iceland during the colonization of Vikings who came from Norway at the end of the ninth century.
Since 1847, eiders have been fully protected in Iceland where hunting and the use of their eggs is prohibited.
However, these birds face danger from many predators, including seagulls, crows, eagles, mink and foxes. However, experts in this animal species confirm that eiders know how to protect themselves.
At a later stage, rotary machines remove other dirt from the feather by pressing it onto a fine wire mesh.
The final touch is handled by expert hands that no machine can replace, which is the final sorting stage: even for the most experienced, manual cleaning of a kilogram of eider feathers takes between four and five hours.
Finally, the feathers are washed with water and sterilized by hand again before squeezing and drying.
The production of the feathers of the world-famous eider is a drop in the sea of global feather production, estimated at 175,000 tons annually, according to the International Down and Feathers Office.
In addition to their geographical rarity, the path that eider feathers take, from manual assembly to meticulous cleaning, explains their high price: a simple quilt containing 800 grams of these feathers sells for 640,000 ISK ($5,100).
And about the identity of the customers of this luxury product, Erla Frederiksdottir explains, "They are often nature lovers and environmentalists", because "the only species that is harvested, while other species are often by-products of the food industry."
Icelandic SMEs mainly export these products to Japan and Germany.
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Iceland,
Arctic eider duck feathers