Okay. Maybe you think this beaver fight is all over. Maybe you think all the big fights are fought already. If so I suggest you take a listen to this podcast with Randy Huntley from Maine. It’s remarkable to me how much time they spend talking about the damaged attitude people have to trapping. Poor fellow.
How to Trap a Beaver with Randy Huntley — WildFed Podcast #113
Today’s episode is with our good friend Randy Huntley. This guy is a hoot. He’s a hunter, a registered Maine guide who leads bear and moose hunts, an Animal Damage Control trapper, a maple sap tapper, an avid fiddleheader, and all-around outdoorsman. He’s got one of the best beards in his field, and he’s also Daniel’s beaver tapping mentor.
He talks for a long while about trapping bear but gets into beaver around 40 minutes in. There’s a discussion about eating beaver and how to prepare them which is a little shocking but he has an unhorrible style to listen too. Even a reference to the furcopalypse. The poor dears didn’t even know that you could decimate a species. But now they’re so careful not to take every beaver.
There’s a surprising discussion about how much good they do, how they create habitat, how ridiculous it is to think they eat fish or ruin the habitat for fish. The host even mentions Derek Gow’s book. A weird collection of facts. Mostly accurate. I don’t get the feeling they are the enemy.
When we teach them new ways to manage beaver or how to improve their livelihood by letting beaver lives, they’ll be happy to cooperate.
