Tom Krause is editor of American Trapper magazine and is a spokesman for the National Trappers Association. “I have been with the NTA since 1985. With editing and publishing, you can live anywhere today, with the use of internet and e-mail and high-speed connections, it allows me a life-style where I can work from my own home,” in Riverton.

A good work ethic is as essential to trap effectively as it is to put out a quarterly magazine,. Trapping is a sport that requires consistency, because you cannot do it one day and not do it the next. You have the responsibility and moral obligation to visit those traps regularly and tend to any animals caught in them, Tom said. “There is an adequate incentive without any laws, however there are law and regulations concerning trap checking that very from state to state.” Every state manages trapping programs to insure sustainability and to prevent over-harvest— through limited season lengths, trapping methods and quotas, etc.

Most trapping is done during the cold winter months, when the animals have prime coats. During the spring and summer, the animals are not adequately furred and there are a significant number of juveniles in the population. Virtually all the animals are adults by winter. .

From the conservation perspective, people need to recognize that there is an annual surplus of animals, Tom said.. To take some out of the population is not harmful to that population and it may be helpful. Each animal is its own worst enemy. Each species competes more with itself than with other species. Through trapping, you can control overpopulation and habitat degradation.

Trapping programs take some of the surplus off the top. That creates more space, more available food, den sites and a healthier population of survivors. The smarter, more intelligent and luckier survivors are the ones who reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generations.. This will encourage animals to be wilder and smarter and more evasive.

There are many types of traplines and types of trapping. Farm boys may run half a dozen fox traps in the morning before school and underemployed blue-collar workers upplement their income in the winter by trapping furs. Trappers must be licensed, must be knowledgeable and have a place to trap. Much preparation must be in place before you can have an effective trapline. You need a plan, to buy equipment and make lures before you go into the field.

“Trappers get up early, “ Tom said. “At  O’dark:30, they are up, had breakfast, packed lunch and gone out the door.” It is important to check traps as early as possible because the chance of loss increases by the hour. A trapper may walk through creeks, or lakes, or sloughs, or marshes while trapping for muskrat or paddling down rivers trapping beavers, river otters or mink. He may have a dry land line, out on the prairie trapping coyotes, badgers or foxes. He may trap in the mountains where he finds animals fur bearing animals like  pine marten. His equipment depends on the time of year. He may drive a pickup truck, use a 4-wheeler to economize or he may walk, float in a canoe or use a motor boat.

It is not a lazy man’s sport; there is an incentive to work hard. You are paid according to the amount of work that you put in, Tom said. It is cold and there is an element of risk because you are by yourself and far from help. Many trappers who get into trouble have to get themselves out of it. You need to be aware of how dangerous it is to walk on ice, or whether you can get through a snowdrift. This is different from teams of people fishing and hunting, where people are available to help or to get help if necessary. Tom said he fell through the ice several times. “It is sobering,” he said, “and it’s cold and can be dangerous.” Of course, wild animals can be a threat, when you release a mountain lion from a trap or you are trapping in a area where bears are attacking people. The risk is even greater for trappers because they are carrying baits and lure smells; the things that excite animals, Tom said.

Another problem is that a trapper could be almost anywhere, so it may be difficult to know where to look for that person if he is incapacitated and cannot communicate. Tom does not leave a map of his trapline, because an active trapline requires you to move from one area to another. Tom tells his wife where he is going to be in general terms “In the event that I don’t show up that night, she will at least have it narrowed down to a few million acres,” Tom laughed.

There are from 160,000 to 250,000 trappers in the United States,. The highest numbers of them live in Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio—other big states for trapping are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois.

American Trapper magazine is a 64 to 80 page, four-color quarterly and mailed to the members of the National Trappers Association. It covers news and anything politically important to our readers. It contains officers’ reports, letters to the editor and feature stories about anything of interest. Annual membership in NTA is $25. “We offer representation to our members.. I wrote a handbook that introduces people to trapping, trapping methods, information about furbearers,” Tom said.

Tom’s trapping career started at age 13. He lived in Wisconsin and hoped to catch a mink, whose track he saw down by the creek. In the early 1950s, mink were valuable animals. Each pelt was worth the equivalent of a week’s labor, about $35 to $40, he said. Some things have change dramatically in the last half-century, but trapping itself changed slowly. The traps are better, but people still love to wear fur. Check out the National Trappers Association at http://www.nationaltrappers.com

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