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.
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