Mountain Lion Attacks Nevada Sheep

Check this out. After losing a bunch of sheep, a Nevada man set up surveillance and discovered the culprit!

Trapping Law Helps Protect North Carolina Landowners

Here’s some trapping related news I thought I’d pass on for those of you in North Carolina.

Individuals in Alamance County, North Carolina are pushing for the extension of a fox trapping law that has helped protect landowners from property damage since its inception in 2006. The ‘local bill’ applies on the county level and allows for a longer fox trapping season than statewide regulations allow.

The current local bill, which expired Jan. 31, 2008, extended the fox trapping season to include the months of October, November and December. Many locals hope the bill is renewed. Fox are considered a nuisance in many rural areas, and while trapping has not been shown to drastically reduce their numbers, it is often effective at controlling animals causing damage and keeping populations at healthy levels.

Trappers get calls from landowners to trap their property for a variety of reasons.

Some are from farmers with crop damage. Other calls come from livestock producers who want to protect chickens and other fowl, or their populations of game animals like rabbits and squirrels.
“A lot of landowners want to protect their rabbits and quails,” Keck said.
Still others, Keck said, come from folks who spot foxes in their yards and worry about rabies.

Fur Market Info Added

I added a fur market page to the site today.  The page currently only contains a few links to fur buyer / auction sites, but will serve as a place to post related fur market information in the future.  Stay tuned for more updates!

New York Extends Emergency Trapping Regulations

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation announced last week that it would extend the emergency trapping regulations put in place at the beginning of the 2007 season.  The regulations were adopted to avoid the incidental killing of dogs and other pets with conibear (body gripping) traps set on the ground for raccoon and fisher.

Body gripping traps have revolutionized trapping because they provide a quick, clean kill for most furbearers.  Unfortunately, they sometimes have the potential to kill the occasional pet, when set in the wrong place.  Trappers should always be aware of the potential for catching non-target critters and pets, and try to avoid such situations so that these regulations are not neccessary. 

The emergency rules require specific dog-proof cubby sets when using body grippers, as well as a minimum setback distance from public hiking trails, among other specifics.  The rules will be extended for about two months, and comments will be reviewed and permanent regulations put in place.

Read the list of emergency regulations here

State Trappers Associations Added

Hey Folks,

Things are just getting started here at TrappingToday.com, and I hope to update you with plenty of new content as it arrives.  Today, I added a new page listing all of the state trappers associations in the U.S. (that I’m aware of), with links provided for the Association websites.  You can see the listings by clicking on the ‘State Trappers Associations’ link at the top of the page.  Enjoy!

Welcome to Trapping Today!

Hello, and welcome to trappingtoday.com!  I decided to start this site after realizing that most trapping related information on the web is currently disseminated via message boards or forums, and I saw a lack of up-to-date information and news stories related to trapping. 

I plan to create this site in a blog format, where the first thing you see as you enter the site will be the most recent blog entry/news story related to trapping.

The blog will also have an informative sidebar with blog topics to navigate through, as well as pages related to the different aspects of trapping.

I’m excited to get this site off the ground, and hope everyone enjoys and finds this an interesting and entertaining source of information.  Thanks for visiting trappingtoday.com, and stay tuned for frequent updates.