Times of low fur prices help to highlight many of the other reasons trappers get out in the field. Not only is trapping an enjoyable and fulfilling activity that gets folks close with nature and their subsistence background, harvesting furbearers is also critical to proper wildlife management.
Here’s a quote from Luke Laha in a recent Wichita Eagle article following a couple of local trappers in the field:
“The main reason I got into trapping, three years ago, was for wildlife management,” Laha said. “That’s when pheasant and quail populations were really, really low and I wanted to give them the best chance I could to reproduce by reducing the number of predators.”
Laha, Wildlife Outfitting and Operations program coordinator at Pratt Community College, said studies in other states have shown that animals such as raccoons and opossums destroy an alarming amount of quail, pheasant and turkey nests every spring. Some southern studies have had 100-percent nest destruction.
“It’s not just (pheasant and quail), but it’s any ground nesting bird, like meadowlarks and others,” Laha said as he turned from pavement to gravel roads. The Clearwater native, who got a degree in wildlife management at Fort Hays State, said many species of ground-nesting birds are in population declines across America because of lack of habitat and the nest destruction it brings.
Leave a Reply