Would Trapper Talk Be Better For This?

I just read the back page of the Wisconsin Trapper. NAFA actually seemed to be bragging about the ridiculously low price of furs.

Their highlight was muskrat. $11.81 Average. The best I ever did was $6.25 in 1976. I'll take those 1976 dollars, Thank You.

They were obviously too embarrassed to mention wild mink. I had a $34 average in 1979. In 1955 a good buck mink brought $35.00.

Raccoons averaged $13.41. In 1978 I averaged $40.60. You cannot make gas mileage for 13 bucks and change. Quit killing coons!

Red Fox brought $35.42. In 1979 I got $65 apiece. Fox fur brought way more money than this before most of you were born.

Coyotes: $54.83. If you live near me and and can catch coyotes in the cities, I'll pay you $150 apiece and you can have the hide.

A remedy to low prices? Sure, you older guys can quit hauling in a barrel full of nearly worthless fur and teach kids to trap.

When I first started out dabbling in adc ,I would do beaver work for the pelts. At 35.00 averages I lost money but gained a lot of experience. The averages for beaver are now a horrific 12.00 and not worth the edge on my knife but somehow I am making a lot more money doing beaver work now. Figure that one out! By the way I did skin out a few this year so I can make some beaver hoops for my place in Maine.

Waste not want not.

I averaged $13.55 on my rats last year for the hides, get $1.50 each for the meat.

Averaged $17.03 on raccoon, $26+ on red fox. I sell a few dressed raccoon for $5-$10 each year.

Skunk essence 10-15 per ounce (my kids sold some put up skunks for a $17 average at a local sale), Beaver castor 30 per pound. If you catch spring rats I think I remember seeing an offer of at least $125 per quart. Squirrel tails $.10-$.25 each.

It takes me about 2-3 minutes to skin a raccoon and another 6-10 to scrape it and put it on a board. I have a total of 8-15 minutes in that. Rats in about half that.

All this for animals I have been paid to catch already!!!!!

Coyotes I get tanned and have yet to sell one for under $75 with the highest being $225.

Beaver really are NOT worth the work but I have a buddy who supplements his family dining with them, so he gets the call to process the beavs.

My point being, don't waste a resource if you can help it.

If you are a Nuisance trapper only, find a fur trapper to "donate" your animals to. I am sure he/she will appreciate it.

Dirk, I'm not big on wasting animals either. Healthy animal are relocated ( Even skunks ) Young fox go to a rehabber. Good eating

animals like muskrat and beaver are fed to animals like coyotes, opossum, raccoons, etc. Donating fur to a market that is already

very depressed doesn't make sense to me. With all that killing, drying, skinning, fleshing, stretching, tanning, gutting, boning, and

scent extraction, when do you find time to do ADC work?

Dirk I agree with you also. I have been showing a teenager the ropes and he is willing to take the beavers as I catch them. The beaver meat normally is used for fisher bait and I also have a few people that enjoy eating it. Everything else gets put up but the beavers are killing me.

Paul,

I bet I'm not that unlike you. I had an old army cot in my office, under my desk, at my last job so I could work late, sleep in my office, and be the first one in in the morning (luckily I had a shower beside my office too). Before I turned 40 I never slept . Now I rarely sleep. When I turn 50 (next year!!!) I might try to get some good sleep, then when I get your age I'll start to nap on occasion!!!!!

Just kidding. I make time as time allows. I have four kids and there is usually one of them who is willing to skin a coon for a couple bucks. When things get a bit slow, or I need a break from the rat race, I'll fire up my wood stove and spend some time in the fur shed. Freezers keep stuff for a surprisingly long time. Don't attempt this with your old ice chest though.

Like I said, it doesn't take me much time though. I trapped back in the golden age too. Paid for my first truck with cash from my furs. It wasn't much of a truck but it was paid for in cash by a seventeen year old kid. In fact, I used to put up over 400 coon a year. The last time I did that was about two years after I started nuisance work full time. Now it is pretty much just what we nab doing nuisance work.

A coon takes about 10-15 minutes, rats about 5-8 minutes, drawing essence from a skunk about 2 minutes.

Do the math and its pretty decent money. Four to six coon per hour, at $17 is $68-102 per hour. 7-12 muskrats per hour at $13.55 pelt & $1.50 meat, is $105.35-180.50 per hour. I probably average about 1/3 ounce of essence per skunk, 30 skunks per hour equals 10 ounces. This means $100-150 per hour on that.

As you can see, it adds up pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you had to figure in your time and fuel to capture them (which has already been accounted for on the "nuisance" side) you wouldn't be making much at all. Once you have done this a while, the processing takes a fraction of the time of the catching.

If you are just throwing it out, find someone who could use the money and let them take 'em off your hands (if legal in your state). The plus for you is you won't have to pay for disposal.

By the way, you're not donating furs to a market, you're donating them to a person who will put some time into it and receive a return for their expertise. Let them decide if it is worth the effort. I bet you would be surprised at who is willing to turn your trash into their treasure.

Heck, it may restore your faith in some young people who are still willing to work hard!!!

I have been doing full time ADC, seasonal fur trapping and operating a full time lure/bait business for the last 35 years or so. I do have good help with the ADC business, but we slow down here in the late fall and winter so that helps to free me up so to speak.

But all in all I do it all and I am the principal office manager and do all the needed paper work/records etc. except the tax work/payroll. We have a CPA that does that end of the program for us.

What I do fur trapping pays for what I do as Dirk made a good explanation of potential income with some fur bearers taken in season or animals utilized from ADC work during in season captures. I have enjoyed it all over the years and the time spent in the field each day. I have made it pay in all areas over the years. So my roots run deep from all the years I have walked this road.

I knew for sure that I would get some opposing viewpoints when I made this post and I was not disappointed. The posts from Steve,

Dirk, and Bob, were even more interesting than usual. A very wise man once said: "You will never learn anything from people that

agree with you." ( Can you imagine what we must have learned from our wives? )

Unfortunately, in MN, any animal caught for pay, IE ADC work, must be buried or destroyed. It is illegal to pick up road kill for the fur. The animal must be legally caught. Many people have picked up road kill for fur. When coon prices are high, road kill doesn't last very long, our former Furbearer specialist told me he thought it was a waste to not be able to sell the fur. Our DNR considers it double-dipping to get money for fur that we were paid to catch. There is an ADC guy that catches thousands of squirrels every year. He can't even sell the tails.

Right but the same people don't think it's a crime to waste your money. You know if you buy a bow tag and don't harvest a deer that tag is no good when gun season comes in. I know that isn't really the same thing but it's still irritating. Maybe a better analogy would be the HVAC guy that sells you a new furnace and because he's such a nice guy he only charges you 50 bucks to haul off the old one for you that by the way he drops off at the scrap yard and because he's a good guy and recycled it the scrap yard gives him a reward for his good deed at the rate of 200 dollars a ton of course.

Lundy,

Some in our Division of Wildlife made the same argument about double dipping (though most did not) when we were going over our law changes several years ago.

I made the argument that tree care companies are paid to take trees out. Do you view them as double dippers if they sell the logs for lumber or cut them up and sell as fire wood? Or do you view them as good stewards of a natural renewable resource? That made the point I wanted!

We came to the agreement that you can sell animals taken under your Commercial Wild Animal Control Operators License as long as you also purchase the appropriate Hunting and Fur Taker Licenses.

You may want to make this same point with the powers that be in Minnesota.

I agree with Dirk.

For me, I relocate animals when it makes sense and I use everything I can from animals I don't. It's a waste not, want not philosophy.

Beaver are a lot of work but with the payment for removal, fur, castor and meat for bait they are very productive animals.

I relocate most skunks but with the price of essence hitting $25/oz I'm starting to rethink it.

A few hundred squirrel tails are better sent to Mepps than thrown away and I'm working on a squirrel meat based bait that is starting to show a little promise.

I keep glands of any kind for my own lures.

As far as fur prices go, I enjoy the little bit of fur trapping I do each year and make the most of the resource. I don't work that much in the winter anyway.

My mom taught me to never waste anything. She said it was a sin.

I love fur trappin...been doing it 23 years...12 of those years have been in adc work...but during the off season...that is what I call Febuary through October I am a full time nuisance wildlife control operator...during the season which is November through January I am a full time fur trapper and nuisance wildlife control operator....I will run 100 to 200 traps during the day fur trappin and have a blast and be done by 1 p.m. and then head out to do nuisance jobs if I have em that day..if not I will do more setting and changing of the trapline...

as soon as I get done typing this I got 3 coon and a possum to skin along with 2 other coons thawing out to flesh and stretch

some pics from last season...I am on my desktop now...all my pics from this year are on my phone still

Joshua, you've kind of made my point. Anyone of those eight raccoons in that first picture, caught in someone else's cage, removed

and released ( At least 15 miles away ) would have brought nearly twice as much money as your fur prices. To me it's kind of like

biting the hand that feeds you. On the bright side, nice buck!

Paul,

You need to take into account state regulations. Not all of use live in a state where we or the client get to decide the animals outcome. In Ohio, we must release on site or kill beaver, coyote, fox, opossum, raccoon, and skunks. So there is no release and get rehired to capture it again. For states like Ohio, it turns into an expense with carcass disposal (usually charged by the pound) so why not lighten the load by putting up some fur and/or selling carcasses?

YEAH! I wish someone near me could teach me. If there is anybody near Waukesha, WI who wants to donate animals, I'll gladly take them. I need the fur handling practice plus I tan them and use them.

Paul, I'm a bit surprised that you view fur trapping as a money-making endeavor. Sure, I've had some great years (economics) fur trapping, but it's usually a break-even or trap at a loss hobby. Again, WCO work and fur trapping are 2 different worlds. Fur trappers are USUALLY hobby trappers and do so for recreational reasons. They simply love it. No different than duck hunting. Ducks do not taste THAT good, to stand in a blind all day in 20 degree temps and sleet.

I will admit there are fur trappers who only trap when prices are high, but more that do it because they enjoy it. If they make a little money, that's good, but if they don't, that's just as good. I've trapped muskrats by the hundreds whether they were 10 bucks or $1.50. Never miss a year. DNR sets season dates (typically with no limits) to insure enough can be harvested to help minimize property damages and keep the populations stable/healthy. Muskrats don't care (or know) if they are worth a buck or 12 bucks... they still destroy dams, levees and shorelines just the same. They need thinned out, and not just so someone can make money at it.

About 10 years ago or so, coons dropped from 25 bucks one year to around 8 bucks. A huge number of trappers and coon hunters quit going, as they were spoiled by the high dollars from the previous year. For a while I was releasing all the medium and small coons that year, until I talked with a biologist from DNR. He got on me for not thinning the population down. Serious predation on ground-nesting birds and disease were the reasons they extended season on many species. He told me to shoot them and let them lay.... NOT to release them. Coon harvests in the 70's and 80's were about 350,000 per year in Illinois (trapping and hunting). When prices crashed in '87, the harvest dropped to about 70,000. Of course that is a reason we (WCO's) are so busy, but with a limited harvest comes detrimental consequences (to a variety of species).

I've caught 300 to 400 muskrats per year (fur trapping) when they were less than 2 bucks. Didn't care. I love doing it, and it DOES NOT hurt the numbers if habitat is available. I'm out trapping every day right now, and prices are poor. 6 bucks for coons (on carcass), 6 for rats, 8 for mink, 8 to 10 for beavers. No way I'm going to break even, but I'll keep going anyway. I can turn off my WCO mentality when fur trapping. Just as I turn off my fur trapping mindset when doing commercial wildlife control.

I trap animals and solve animal problems all year long for a living, and my "weekend" is December and January. So to "relax" after catching animals all spring, summer and fall, I go catch animals.... but on a different level. Don't have to "catch them all" at any site. Can go where I want, when I want. And helping landowners by being part of the "old school" trapping tradition. I sell my catch on carcass to a local fur buyer who has a contract with with a pet food company in St. Louis. Nothing is wasted. And it makes me feel great when an anti-trapper (while holding their little dog that is "part of the family") tells me they hate trapping (and yes, trappers). I simply let them know their little fur ball eats the meat and by-products from the critters I catch.... then they don't know what to say.

Getting off-topic.... but fur trapping is such a tradition in so many areas that the die-hard guys would be doing it even if the animals had NO value (myself included). To view every aspect of interacting with Nature and wildlife through an economic standpoint seems a bit narrow-minded. Just sayin'.

BTW.... Was a state trapper education instructor for 15 years, and still constantly take kids (and adults) out trapping to introduce them to the activity.

Ron, those little furballs are probably being fed a "vegetarian dog food" (isn't that what Ellen DeGeneres sells?).

Fur trapping has been my full time job before and now is my part time...how many hobbies in the outdoors can one make a return on investment? ....not many. Here are a few pics from this season....i love catchin mink...how many mink adc jobs does anyone get...i bet not many







All traps i set for mink are blind sets...meaning i use NO bait...i match the mink at his natural movements

First is Jooleyen; We catch just about everything there is in Waukesha and Waukesha county. We just finished a beaver job there.

The customer bought his own Conibears after the job was done and set one. He called to tell me he caught a really big mink. I told

him a four foot long mink is usually called an otter.

Eric, your absolutely right about carcass disposal.

Ron, Our DNR wants everything dead too, but their theories don't match up. We have the largest raccoon population ever and also

one of our highest duck hatches. I trap muskrats all year long for decent money, ( I have three jobs I can't get to now ) and would

have a hard time selling my brain on catching more for recreation. I also do mink trapping on Koi ponds every year. We catch 1200

to 1500 raccoons a year. By this time of the season, we're not that excited about coons anymore. Dealing with animals nearly every

day of my life has certainly taken "the edge off" of fur trapping for me but then I did it for 35 straight years.

You do have my utmost respect for your Trapper's Ed work with kids and adults.

Paul,

What animals do you have to put down?

Saber-toothed tigers, T-Rexes, and pterodactyls, are the only things that come to mind. Oh yeah, black bears are not welcome in the

city of Milwaukee. This does not mean I can't kill almost everything I catch, it just means I don't have to.

The states like Minnesota that don't want you to "double dip" blow me away. Our DNR recommends throwing dead animals in the garbage.

This is because there is practically nothing in the garbage dump that makes more methane gas than dead animals. So the company that

you pay to collect your garbage, sucks out the gas, turns it into electricity and sells it back to you. Talk about double dipping!

I would complain but these waste management companies are also good customers. ( They can afford it )

It is extremely hard to impact the commodity markets through volunteer agreements that individuals will reduce or cease production until prices go back up. It is probably illegal if done a certain way. The reality is that people will always "cheat" on such agreements. Even the oil producers cheat on OPEC. We have so-called trappers that steal from each other- would they agree to reduce what they send to market?

On the other hand, I think we could add some stability to the market if we were able to encourage domestic fur sales, but fashion is really hard to control, if not impossible. The best we can hope for is that some genius will discover a use for fur that doesn't require a woman to decide she looks good wearing it. Maybe we could get the pro football players to wear more, especially since Americans worship football.

But more to the point, I fleshed my first beaver skin last night and it was a (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) of a lot of work. I can't imagine how hard some of you trappers work putting up beavers and coons. At 57 years young, I could not begin to make money at trapping. To me it is a sport/hobby. I wish I could find young people around here who wanted to put up fur-- they are few and far between.