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A hit television series isn’t the only reason that furbearer trapping is seeing an increase in Maine, but it certainly is one of them, according to the person who runs trapping education for the state.
The demand for beaver pelts to make hats has increased exponentially, especially since the series “Yellowstone” hit the television screen, said Ron Fournier, recreational safety supervisor for Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
The reasons people are getting into trapping shows a cultural shift. Now, men and women are trapping to handle nuisance wildlife such as beaver and coyote on farms, for food, for clothing materials such as the beaver hats, for wild proteins to feed dogs, especially sled dogs, and hunters are expanding into trapping, he said.
In the past, trapping changed in popularity based on the markets for pelts and other parts of the animals.
“When I was a kid, I trapped six red foxes and bought a two-year-old snowsled with the money. Now I couldn’t put gas and oil in a snowsled with the same six foxes,” said Frank Short, president of the Maine Trappers Association.
He said kids would leave school during trapping season at that time because they could make so much money trapping raccoons.
China, Ukraine and Russia were three major buyers of Maine furs, but strained relations with those countries and the war between Ukraine and Russia changed that, Fournier said.
Greece and Korea also were marketplaces, but not as much now, Short said. The most lucrative market for trappers in 2023 is in the West for beaver hats, he said.
Most trappers are not in it for the money any more because of the poor market for furs in general. Most of the interest is among homesteaders and people who want to expand their outdoors activities, he said.
More Mainers are taking trapper education, which is required in order to get a license to trap Maine’s 16 furbearers and black bears. There were 280 trappers in each of 2017 and 2018, and 380 in 2019.
The pandemic interrupted the education course people needed for their trapping license in 2020, but there were just fewer than 500 in 2021.
The largest number was in 2022 at 525. This year is on track for the same, he said.
In 2021, the Legislature mandated a bear trapping-only education program and license, which has exploded in popularity. In 2022, 780 people took the bear trapping course. Between bear and furbearer trapping last year, there were approximately 1,400 new trappers in Maine, Fournier said.
This year will show a total of approximately 1,000 new trappers including furbearers and bears, he said.
More women are getting into trapping too, some for the sport and to do an outdoor activity and others for materials for clothing and crafts, Short said.
Trapping is sustainable in Maine for many reasons, Fournier said, including that the furbearer and bear populations range from abundant to overpopulated; trapping regulations are based on science and animal management and are constantly being reviewed and modified; traps are more sophisticated and humane, and some trapping devices are built so they won’t trap certain species.
Also, trappers are the front line for information on diseases or other issues affecting the furbearers. They submit harvest reports twice a year to the biologists.
“Our biologists rely on these ‘citizen scientists’ to assist in getting this data to gain insight on population trends, health, and other data points such as age structure, and other biological markers,” Fournier said.
Coyotes are starting to get Lyme disease, raccoons are less plentiful because of distemper and no one harvests fishers so the increase in that population puts it at risk of distemper too, Short said, emphasizing trapping as a species management tool.
The state at one time offered just one or two classes a year, but demand increased the number to one a month. People take classes online or with a manual and workbook the state will send out and spend just one day in Augusta for in-person training. After the course, participants are eligible for a trapping license.
The state also offers next-step classes that teach trappers how to prepare pelts for the tannery or to sell at auction, among other topics.
Trapping is one of the most regulated activities of the MDIF&W, and a group of very conscientious people are learning best management practices and how to be ethical trappers, Fournier said.
“I am proud of licensed trappers and the Maine Trappers Association for changing the narrative of what trapping is,” he said.
