Would like you all to know that it’s hot, dangerous, muddy work killing beavers and squirrels and raccoons for a living. But apparently it’s not thankless. June appears to be the month for weddings and inspiring tales of very manly trappers. (Hmmm…maybe all these female reporters – and trust me, the reporters are always female – are pining for their own wedding bells and dreaming about someone to kill the big spiders in their tiny apartments.) Or maybe it’s that all of nature is looking for a place to raise its young at this time of year. Whatever the reason, this morning from my google vantage point I can see at least three stories of trapper-porn-informercials, thinly disguised as news.
The first hales from New Jersey where Frank Spiecker’s rodent-killing muscles ripple at wildlife menacingly while he pauses to pose for the camera.
“Animal control doesn’t provide removal of wildlife from your home,” Spiecker said. “When someone calls in and says they have a squirrel in the house, provided it’s not attacking anyone, it’s the responsibility of the homeowner. They assume because they pay taxes that that’s what they get for their taxes.” A hunter since adolescence, Spiecker also was in construction for more than a decade, making him somewhat of an authority on the subject of trapping — especially indoors.
Hmmm….nice. How about this offering from Maine? I’m sure the reporter was eager to do the behind the scenes follow-up on this story.
John Bourgoin works daily to allay the fears of homeowners who call to report hearing “strange noises in the night.”
John Bourgoin was on the job in Fortune Rocks near Biddeford Pool this week, carrying a wire trap for extracting raccoons that settled in a house’s attic through a vent. “I’ve been a state-licensed trapper for 30 years. But I’ve been doing this since 1979. I started out fur trapping for pelts at age 17 with my father and grandfather.”
Too Northern for your tastes? Consider Mr. Burch from Jacksonville Florida, an admitedly more rugged specimen, but one who merits his own cover story after bagging two alligators that were harassing medical staff.
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — A St. Johns County alligator trapper was busy early Wednesday trapping two gators in two places. Adam Burch caught a gator at Flagler Hospital at about 2 a.m. after the gator bit a hospital employee on the leg.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, thank goodess these men are around to protect us from wildlife, and reinforce our lazy reluctance to work for real solutions. I’m thinking all these snare-bearing heart-throbs might want to do a calendar?
