Letter to the editor – 2007 spring edition
THE TRAPPERS PLIGHT
The decline in hunters and trappers may be a concern but certainly is not the problem. Populations are increasing and so the hunter/trapper populations should also be increasing but they are not. Why? It is very simple. As for hunters, the government has made the transport of firearms a dangerous thing to do. If a man makes one small legal mistake he can go to jail; lose his guns; his house [and wife] and end up forever in debt to the lawyers. Furthermore the cost of hunting is astronomical. Licenses fees are through the roof; ammunition cost five bucks a shot; and the cost of gas and planes to remote areas makes the meat acquired more costly than meat in the store. Hunting has become to legally dangerous and too expensive.
Trappers are another story. Top of the list is the traps they are forced to use; they are expensive to buy; dangerous to use; and very in-efficient; add the high cost of fuel [$15.00 per gallon to the trapline]; the high cost of planes to remote traplines; the high cost of snowmobiles; the high cost of food in the north; then couple those with the 1980 fur prices received for fur and the trapper cannot make ends meet; let alone earn a wage.
A $60 super cub airplane is now $300; a 20lb bag of sugar or flour were $5 now $20. In the ‘80’s the $40 martin covered the cost of the trappers logistics but now the $80 martin shows the trappers a loss to inflation by a factor of four. To keep up with the costs a trapper must earn four times the 1980 price of martin – average $160 per pelt or quit trapping. All the B.S. from the furriers will not alter the hard cold facts; if a trapper is not making the money, he cannot and will not trap.
When the trappers lost the leghold trap he lost his trapping versatility and required more traps to catch less fur; add the declining weather pattern to the trappers continuing plight of high costs and bad dangerous traps and one cannot blame the trappers for leaving the bush. Trappers already push as hard as they can to get fur but declining weather conditions often push the trappers into down time and subsequent lose of fur that he cannot afford.
The trapper’s plight is amplified by the furriers. A furrier has absolutely no business on a trappers trap line. The trapper is a freeman who wants to be left alone to mind his own business. As soon as the trapper is dictated to by outsiders such as the furriers [who, from all appearances don’t know their butt from a hole in the ground about real trappers and trapping] his freedom is lost and his heart goes out of trapping. The high cost of dangerous traps that the trapper is forced to buy every five years; the trippled commission [leveraged with a give me your money and I wouldn’t break your [financial] arm; trippled royalties and drumming costs coupled with the high inflation costs of the trapper’s logistics all add to take the incentive out of trapping.
The Canadian trappers are the only trappers who are forced to use the coni bear traps; a trap which is sadly lacking in trapping versatility; notwithstanding its danger to the user; yet the Canadian furs are sold along side other countries which still use the efficient and humane leghold traps and other outlawed practises. The bush history of the coni bear line of traps has shown that the coni bear traps almost never instantly kills the caught animal. Reports of the new [?] verified traps used in the winter of 2006 show that a martin caught in the new verified traps can live for as long as eleven hours. This contradiction of the Laws grounds for demanded usage of the coni bear trap and the Truth that the trappers sees in the coni bear traps bush performance can only breed disrespect for the Law and the people selling/promoting the coni bear traps. With the lack of respect comes disillusionment for the trapper and the trappers will eventually divorce himself from those he has no further trust in. If the Law and the furriers would quit harassing the trappers with bad laws and rip-off scams and dangerous equipment which inevitably end up to the trapper’s detriment and just leave him alone and let him trap with the equipment of his choice, men would continue to trap to the end of time; the fur industry would remain healthy.
Take away the trappers prerogatives in the bush and he will rebel and stop fully trapping his trap line – or completely stop trapping; but many trappers are approaching - or are currently in retirement. If prices do not increase to meet the increasing costs of the trapper’s logistics; if the traps become to dangerous; or if the laws become too stupid; then it is much easier for the trappers to live off of his pension and only trap his line enough to retain ownership [ I Have!] ; and when the old trappers die off what young man is going to face the dangerous traps and hardships of the bush for the low pay of trapping when he can make $50,000 per year in a soft job in towns? Trapping is no longer worth the price or the risk to one’s life.
Casey
TRAPPERS PAGE 2