This wistful ode to trappers is exactly the kind of article I’ve come to expect from the winter months. Something that argues the killing skill is a ‘lost art’ that’s ‘needed more now than ever’. Oh puleeze….

Is Trapping in America on the Brink of Extinction, or at the Beginning of a Comeback?

Up until now, the popularity of trapping in America has always been tied to fur prices and the simple rules of supply and demand. When there’s more demand for fur, prices increase and trapping increases. However, trapping is on the verge of breaking away from its economic ties. It’s facing negative pressures, like legislation that bans trapping in several states plus never-ending attacks from antihunting groups. But trapping is also seeing a slight uptick in participation as more wildlife managers trap for predator control, and hunters who were locked down during the COVID pandemic got into trapping because, well, it’s fun.

Sure, I bet being a serial is fun too. In it’s way. At least you meet people. Honestly if the papers knew how fricking predictable these articles were maybe they’d show more care in printing them.

Randy Newberg is a public lands advocate, trapper, hunting media personality, and accountant—​in that order. When he returned home to northern Minnesota from college in 1984, he and his uncle trapped 125 beavers in a week. They were worth $20 each ($50 in today’s dollars). He paid his spring tuition with money made from beaver pelts. And he wasn’t the only one with that idea.

Oh PLEASE do my taxes. I beg you. I’ve always wanted an account that kills 125 beavers in a week.what is that 20 families of beavers? Is that all? I would have thought a strapping young accountant like yourself would apply himself

Furbearer harvest reports show that 1984 was Minnesota’s third-best year for beaver pelts, with 154,000 harvested. The best year for the state was 1986, with 172,000. Nationally, 1986 was the best harvest trappers have ever reported, with more than half a million beavers taken.

Minnesota has kept records of its trapping license sales since 1957, which show the state had the most licensed resident trappers in 1980 at 24,691. And then the demand for all fur turned south in the late 1980s. Global overproduction of farmed fur flooded the market, the economies of major importers like the Soviet Union were on the brink of collapse, and a growing anti-fur movement influenced demand. License sales suffered, as did harvest numbers.

Gee I wonder what it would have been in 1825 or 1768. Probably a number so large it would make that look like a fingernail. When people say they’re killing more beavers than ever before they aren’t really thinking about  what ever before used to look like.

Fast-forward to 2012 and 2013. Gas was expensive ($94 per barrel, or nearly $110 in today’s dollars) and Russia was exporting a lot of it. China’s economy was booming as well. Both countries had a thirst for fur. In 2013, prices paid for fisher fur surged 50 to 70 percent higher than 2012 numbers. As a result, trapping participation surged. There were an estimated 142,287 licensed trappers in the U.S. in the 2003–04 season. By the 2014–15 season, those numbers had jumped to 176,573. Trappers in the U.S. have always had to deal with the economics of a fickle market, but in the past few decades, they’ve had to contend with a whole lot more.

Ohhh the poor trappers, Ohh the poor poor fur prices. Why aren’t mammal skins valuable anymore? It’s the damn Peta people. They ruined everything.

In the 1990s, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched the “I’d Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur” campaign. It showed photos of celebrities that left little to the imagination. Pamela Anderson, Dennis Rodman, and other stars of the day were recruited to protest fur as well as anything else related to animals, including medical testing. PETA went straight to the designers, invading the offices of Calvin Klein and generally annoying others like Ralph Lauren.

Well now. Look how they ruined a perfectly good pastime. Thank god there’s not a People for the Ethical treatment of Fish group! They’d ruin saturdays for everyone!

This was bad news for the future of trapping. At the same time, though, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies was hoping to change the rhetoric. The group worked with state agencies, trapper organizations, and expert trappers around the country to produce a central document that could be used as a guide for trappers, wildlife professionals, and others to improve trapping techniques, reduce incidental take, and improve trapping’s image in the public eye. The AFWA called it “Best Management Practices for Trapping Furbearers in the United States,” and it’s still being used today. 

“Before the BMPs, trapping programs were all over the place,” says Tom Decker, a biologist who administers grants related to furbearer management with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “This was designed to lift all boats on a rising tide.” 

Did the group work with flow device installers? No of course not. It didn’t take into account that the habitat that a live beaver will create will support wildlife that lots of trappers can continue to harvest, did it? That kind of long term thinking doesn’t appeal to the trapping community I guess.

Despite anti-trapping legislation, public shame campaigns, and current fur prices (which are in the toilet), trapping participation is actually on the upswing. Decker of the USFWS estimates the country currently has anywhere between 210,000 and 260,000 trappers, which is far and away the most it’s seen since the AFWA began keeping tabs in 1992. So what gives? Many things, Decker says. 

“People want to make their own clothes just like they want to put food on the table,” he says. “And fewer trappers are selling their pelts on the open market. They are making and using the furs themselves and then selling them. The pelt might be worth $25, but make something and sell it in a craft shop and you get $200 for it.”

He does admit that there was a COVID bump, but Seybold is also seeing a wider acceptance of hunting and trapping in general. It never hurts that television shows like Alone feature attractive 30-somethings snaring rabbits and paying respect to the animals. 

“Education has made people more aware,” says Seybold. “It’s not the Wild West out there anymore. I’m hoping we’ve turned a corner.”

It’s the same as it ever was, Just with different parameters. Back during the fur rush people killed many beavers for their own selfish interests and greed. Now they just kill them for different selfish interests. A garden that doesn’t flood. A culvert that never gets backed up.

Greed is renewable you see. Unlike beavers we will always have more than enough to go around.