Trappers Misunderstood

James Foster of New Brunswick, Canada’s Times & Transcript newspaper wrote an excellent article on trapping after taking the Province’s sponsored trapping course for the first time himself.  Like James said, taking a trapping course can be a real eye opener to folks who otherwise aren’t familiar with the sport.

The course was more than informative – it was downright fascinating, offering keen insight into this age-old tradition that nowadays is carried on almost solely for the love of their craft. For sure, nobody’s trapping for the money or because it’s easy.

And by taking the time to learn about trapping, Foster came away with an enlightenment that I wish more people had.

Fur trapping has got to be the most misunderstood of all outdoor pursuits. Trapping is about as sustainable and renewable as it gets. Nothing is wasted in the taking of furbearing animals, and furbearers provide us with more than just clothing. The finest artists’ brushes come from furbearers. The best fishing flies, too. The cosmetics industry relies a lot on the fur industry, as do crafts people. The list goes on and on.

If I took away nothing else from the course, it’s that trapping requires a whole lot of knowledge, a ton of common sense and a sense of duty to our furbearing wildlife that goes far beyond that of the ordinary everyday citizen.

Foster provided a lot more great information on trapping and trappers in his column, which you can read by clicking here.

If more non-trappers would approach trapping with an open mind, they would come away with a much greater understanding of what it really means to trap.

Fur Is Green

The Fur Council of Canada has put together a great educational web site designed to promote fur as a natural, renewable resource.  At www.furisgreen.com, you can learn why buying and promoting fur is good for the environment.

Trapping and fur use helps state and federal wildlife agencies manage populations of furbearers to provide an optimum balance with other species in nature.  These populations are abundant and individuals harvested are replaced by the next generation or by migration from other areas.  Fur also promotes the economy and local cultures built around hunting and trapping.

Check out the Fur Is Green website.  Like it says:

At a time when we are all trying to be conscious of how our lifestyles affect nature, fur is an excellent choice. Like leather, suede and shearling, fur is a natural product, a true gift of nature…

The site contains a lot of information, including general fur and trapping info, current news, and a Q&A section.  We as trappers need to continue to educate the public about the benefits of using fur in our society.

Foothold Traps are Humane, Columnist Demonstrates

The best way to combat animal rights arguments is with the facts.  Massachusetts outdoor columnist Marc Folco did just that when he demonstrated, on video, what it’s like to get your hand caught in the average foothold animal trap.  Folco showed the public what most trappers already know: these traps are humane!

The same traps demonstrated in the video below were banned in Massachusetts years ago by uneducated voters in a statewide referendum.

Click here to read the full story.

Conflict Over Bear Snaring in Nova Scotia?

According to a recent news article, a Nova Scotia man is pushing to outlaw bear snaring in the province, citing it as ‘barbaric’.

What the retired school teacher and bird hunter has failed to recognize, however, is that this snaring is the same exact method used by biologists across Canada and the U.S. to capture bears for research purposes.

Here’s what the local Trappers Association had to say:

Ross White, vice-president of the Trappers’ Association of Nova Scotia, says bear snaring is considered humane and effective.

Snares are comprised of a steel cable that loops around the leg holding the bear until the trapper returns. Only certified trappers can get a permit to snare a bear. They are required by law to check the traps every 24 hours, he said.

The trapper usually then uses a high-powered rifle to shoot the snared bear, said Mr. White, who lives in the Truro area. Bears most often get caught in the snares at night and the traps are checked first thing in the morning, he said.

“Most generally, they are not in distress very long. When you go to the snare, the bear is laying there. It is quite comfortable. It is quite relaxed,” he said.

The Natural Resources Department was contacted about the issue:

In 2008, the Natural Resources Department issued 145 bear snaring permits. Sixty-two bears were snared, according to provincial statistics. During the same period, about 2,680 bear hunting licences were issued, with 532 bears hunted and killed.

Only one bear is allowed per hunter or trapper during the bear harvesting season, which runs from the middle of September to Dec. 1.

Tony Nette, manager of wildlife resources for the Natural Resources Department, said there is no move to ban bear snaring.

Mr. Kendall’s complaint is the first he has heard in many years, he said Friday.

The local sportsmen’s association weighed in as well:

Tony Rodgers, executive director of the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters, also said he has not heard any complaints about the practice.

“We see no problem with it,” he said.

Not only is bear snaring a valuable tradition in eastern Canada and Maine, it plays an important role in helping manage bear populations.

Nova Scotia’s black bear population has been increasing for the last 15 years, and snaring is an effective way for getting rid of nuisance bears, Mr. Nette said.

“They are hard to hunt. . . . There is a lot of conflict with agriculture,” said Mr. Nette, who oversees management of bear, moose and deer in Nova Scotia.

Natural Resources Department field staff is run ragged in the summer with complaints of bears destroying bee hives and blueberry crops, said Mr. Nette, who works in Kentville.

Hopefully one man’s problem with this bear snaring doesn’t lead to a huge animal rights campaign to take away another one of the traditional practices of local trappers.  Let’s try being reasonable.  Live and let live.

Read the full story here.

Sharing the Trail: How Pet Owners and Trappers Can Avoid Conflicts in the Field

With trapping season underway in many states, it’s important that trappers and pet owners both work hard to avoid having dogs caught in traps. Catching dogs is a hot button issue in many places, particularly on public land that supports multiple use. In most cases, dogs are safely and easily released from traps, but some situations can be fatal, and these need to be avoided.

The Juneau Empire, newspaper for Alaska’s capitol city, published a recent article explaining ways pet owners can avoid problems with traps. The article highlights places to hike where trapping isn’t allowed, but the reality is that dog walkers can also avoid problems on trails that are open to trapping simply by keeping their pets on leash. Trappers and pet owners, please do your best to avoid pet catches, as these situations attract lots of attention and can shed a bad light on trapping.

The Alaska Trappers Association has put out a video entitled “Sharing Alaska’s Trails”, which helps educate pet owners on what to look for and avoid when walking dogs in areas where trapping takes place.  You can purchase a copy of the video or view the entire video free here.

Trapping Is Humane

Amongst the mayhem of recent lawsuits by environmental groups to ban certain types of trapping in Maine to ‘protect’ Canada lynx, much discussion has ensued on message boards, blogs and various other websites.

Many questions have risen about trapping, as a larger base of the uninformed public has started hearing more about this issue and wants more background.

In one of those discussion sessions, a young biology student provided some great answers and insight on trapping.  With her permission, I’ve printed her response to some non-trapper comments below:

Since another commenter asked, I’ll tell you how you trap and release a lynx in a foothold without any damage. Trappers and biologists do it the very same way; by using a snare pole, aka catchpole or dog-catcher pole. If you’ve ever watched “Animal Cops” you’ve seen them use snare poles on housecats that are feral without any harm coming to them. Unlike coyotes, beavers and raccoons, bobcat and lynx are not trap fighters. This means that after a few initial test tugs and leaps, the bobcat/lynx settles down in a crouch and lets his camouflage hide him. They just sit there with a heavy cold bracelet on their paw. Wearing a heavy bracelet that might be chilly, depending on weather conditions, but animals have fur and tough pads on the bottom of their paws. Just how cold it is on the paw is debatable, but I know that when I ice my wrist after straining it, my discomfort comes from from the ice pack being directly on my bare skin, and lessens to a mere annoyance when I put a thin cotton sleeve on my arm. Since fur is a much better insulator than cotton, my personal belief is that a bobcat/lynx isn’t feeling significant discomfort from the trap’s temperature.

Traps themselves look like scary devices, but much like a doctor’s needle, aren’t as bad when you actually see them in action. Trappers getting their fingers caught while setting foothold traps is a common occurrence, and they do sting, but they do not break people’s fingerbones. They sting a person because human hands lack hard, tough pads and a protective layer of fur. Also, traps are usually buried under dirt, snow and/or ice, or are underwater when triggered by an animal, and lose power pushing up through these barriers. The trapper feels the full-force but the animal does not. I have never seen a bobcat with so much as broken skin in a foothold trap. The only indicator of a trap is typically fur that is creased in a line on the top of the paw. Most trappers check daily, as a trap that already has an animal in it cannot catch a new one until you remove the previous animal. The trapper wants to also re-set traps that have been fired but not caught anything to get them back in working order asap. The 24 hour check rule is useful, as it allows trappers to respond to family emergencies, etc without getting some sort of fine or penalty. The rule itself, as just explained, is not the incentive to check daily.

The traps set for bobcats, using bobcat urine and other lures, may attract lynx, but lynx are bigger, stronger animals. The small traps set for bobcats is not going to harm a lynx, which may be able to extract himself on his first surprise leap after the trap has fired. The lynx that do stay in a trap sometimes could have pulled out if they had only fought, but many times they just sit down. The trapper simply sees that he/she has caught a lynx, identifiable by the giant snowshoe paws, it’s large size and distinctive tail…and retrieves the catch-pole from his/her vehicle. Catch poles are standard equipment. While the lynx is safely restrained by the pole, the trapper then depresses the foothold’s spring with his/her boot. The lynx is now free of the trap, and the trapper can watch how it walks and bears it’s weight. If the lynx seems to be injured, in any way, or have a disease such as parvo, rabies, mange or distemper, he/she can call wildlife or game officials to come get it. If the lynx is feisty and healthy, the trapper simply opens the loop on the pole and the lynx is free.

Biologists foothold trap lynx, otter, and other species to collar, release or re-locate animals all the time. That’s right, biologists use footholds. They are simply restraining devices for land animals larger than rats/weasels. The only reason trappers are demonized is because very few people trap in the US, less than 1% of the population. The general public is ignorant about trapping, and has been made afraid of it by tales from the days of pioneers, Indian fighting and slavery. Comparing the trappers of the 1800′s to today’s trappers and calling it bad is as ridiculous as blaming today’s cotton farmers for slavery. Everybody knows a deer hunter, and can ask a deer hunter questions, but with trapping, it’s hard to find a person who does it and can answer your questions and alleviate your fears. I thought trapping was bad before I became a biology student and saw it done in the field.

Trappers do it as a hobby because they generally love nature and the outdoors, they care about species as a whole, they just don’t sentimentalize and romanticize the individual members of the species. Trappers want a healthy lynx population, and they like to assist biologists and conservation officers. Their reports on animal movements, numbers harvested in different regions, etc, helps scientists to understand this creature better. They pay license fees that support biological study and conservation.

There is absolutely no incentive for a Maine trapper to harvest a lynx, as no tannery would accept one without a CITIES tag on it, no fur buyer would risk his license and jail time over a lynx pelt, and no auction house accepts bobcat/lynx pelts that don’t have proper tags on them. Tags are provided by the state wildlife agency, and are not provided for lynx in Maine, as they are not legal harvest. The fact that trap size and trap check times are regulated by the state means the lynx is already protected when it comes to footholds. No lawsuit about it is necessary. You can release a lynx from a foothold, but you cannot release a lynx from the bumper of a car! If it really was about protecting animals, there would be a push to ban vehicles in the areas that lynx dwell. Trappers are not happy about these proposed “restrictions” because they are a thinly veiled attempt to try and stop trapping in general, for any reason.

So, if trapping is demonized wrongly, you may wonder why. Long ago a white man who called himself ‘Grey Owl” and pretended to be an Indian, lied to crowds in England about life in the new world and trapping. Even after he was exposed as a 100% Caucasian charlatan, his lies and made up horror stories about trapping persisted. His book was a best-seller, and ever since the 1800′s, groups of people have tried to make money off of an ignorant public, begging for donations to “stop horror, stop cruelty.” I’ve seen trapping done in the course of my biology study and I can tell you that it’s nothing like what the anti-trappers describe. The videos out there on places like You-Tube were animal snuff films with altered and tampered traps that were de-bunked as set-up and staged long ago. The media no longer plays such films on the news channels because the films were determined to be not genuine examples of trapping, but staged snuff films. If you examine the “Crying Shame” video on You-Tube, one can clearly see the water line of the fish-tank the film-makers were using to depict a beaver in a trap. It’s a fake setup for all of these propaganda films, and the fact that there was an attempt to submit “blogs” as evidence here makes me shake my head at just how gullible people can be. Blogs can be made by anyone, and I’m hopeful that the judge will continue to be fair concerning this matter. There’s too much hate against trappers and fur-wearers right now to expect the kind of cooperation and understanding between conservationists and trappers like there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s day, but, hopefully, with some education and awareness, trappers will be appreciated again.

Trapping Controversy in Nova Scotia

The conflict between trapping and pets is often misunderstood and severely damaging to the future of legal trapping in North America.  Pets are occasionally caught in traps set for furbearing wildlife, and each incident is heartfelt and depressing, usually stirring up controversy over whether trapping should be legal or not.

In a recent news article, Nova Scotia trapper Gary Fisher attempts to explain how today’s trappers operate in the province, and describe efforts taken to avoid catching pets in traps.

“We’re really trying not to catch people’s pets. That’s the message I want to convey,” Mr. Fisher says after demonstrating three types of raccoon sets and an underwater set for trapping beavers.

Fisher is one of many trappers who are pushing for others to be more responsible about where and how they set their traps, while at the same time urging pet owners to obey the law and keep their pets from running free in wildlife habitat.

Unfortunately, not everybody listens.

The Trapping Awareness Project started in 2005 amid concerns over landowners’ rights and pets getting caught in traps. There were nine incidents a couple of seasons ago, Mr. Morse says, but in each case, the trapper or pet owner wasn’t following the rules.

Partially due to concerns about capturing pets, many in the province are trying to pass a law requiring trappers to obtain permission before setting traps on private property, which currently isn’t required unless the property is posted.

They also want to require written permission to set traps within 1 kilometer of a dwelling, which seems to be an unreasonable request because of the high density of dwellings in many areas where furbearer population control (through trapping) is neccessary.

“In essence, if you take a map and you start to draw one-kilometre circles around properties, you discover you would need to have, in some cases, hundreds and even thousands of written permission statements in order to curb nuisance wildlife, and that is just obviously not practical,” Mr. Morse says.

“If you put too many obstacles in place, you’re going to put an end to this practice.”

And ending the practice of trapping is certainly the goal of some.  For others, they simply want to make sure that their pets aren’t caught in traps.

Ultimately, that requires the responsible actions of trappers and pet owners alike.

Be sure to read the story and check out the comments section.  Nova Scotians have as many different opinions about trapping as you could imagine!

Trapping Near Trails: Avoid the Controversy

The issue of trapping on public trails has been a hot topic in the news lately.  It seems like every few weeks a story comes out about a hiker’s dog being killed in a trap, refuelling debate about how trappers should operate.

New York State recently adopted emergency trapping regulations that made it illegal to set traps that could kill dogs near public trails in the state.  The Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners also recently enacted regulations prohibiting trapping within 1,000 feet of designated hiking trails, and prohibiting trapping near trails in Alaska’s Chugach State Park is currently being discussed.

Such publicity isn’t a good thing for trappers, and the resulting legislation isn’t necessarily a good thing either.  Regulations like the ones discussed above arise directly as a result of incidental pets being captured in traps, and can sometimes limit responsible trappers from operating in order to control the problems caused by a few. 

The solution is for us as trappers to educate each other and make sure that the only sets we make near public trails are certain to be dogproof.  It’s true that most areas have leash laws and trappers may be operating in a legal manner when a pet is allowed to roam and is killed in a trap.  But sometimes being legally ‘in the right’ just isn’t enough, and can give a bad reputation to trappers everywhere.  Most of these new regulations are a direct result of political action taken by pet owners who have had a bad experience with traps.

The simple fact is that using common sense and not setting potential pet-catching sets near hiking trails is the best way to prevent damaging the reputation of the rest of the trapping community, and should keep trapping regulations from becoming tougher near public trails.