Running the line between recreation and conservation

Seeley Lake – Just after sunrise Saturday, Jan. 9, local wolf trapper Rob Henrekin fired up his snowmobile to check his trapline, something he has done every day since the wolf season opened Dec. 15. While he had seen tracks from a pair of wolves Dec. 24, he had not had a single visit to his 40 plus foothold traps.

"It is such a rush everyday, even when I don't catch a wolf," said Henrekin. "If I'm just patient and everything is working, they will be back. Whether I catch them or not is unknown but I'll have a visit."

As Henrekin approached one of his dirt hole sets, something didn't look right. He slowed down and scanned the area. He noticed a wolf looking at him from behind some brush. He couldn't contain his excitement as he dismounted his snowmobile. This was his first catch in a dirt hole set and his first wolf of the year.

"This is a really big accomplishment," Henrekin said. "There are so many things that go against you. That is why it is so exciting when it actually works. It is an unexplainable feeling."

Trapping fur-bearing animals has existed for centuries. Historically trappers could make a living selling furs and land managers were expected to manage predators by trapping. Today, most trapping is done recreationally and land managers and biologists are no longer expected to possess the skills of a trapper. With the ethics of trapping being highly debated, trapping has been and continues to be used as a viable conservation and management tool as well as a recreational opportunity.

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Prior to regulations in the 1800s and early 1900s, some animals were trapped to near or total extinction in some areas. Jay Kolbe, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Wildlife Biologist, said trapping is now highly regulated.

"My job and the state's job is to find that balance between what opportunities can we sustainably offer and what do we need to regulate to ensure the continued persistence and success of the species," Kolbe said.

Trappers use a variety of traps including foothold traps and foot and neck snares which range in lethality.

Ovando trapper Bob Sheppard disagrees with the perception that trappers indiscriminately throw traps out in the woods in hopes of catching something. He used the example of a coyote traveling through its three-square mile home range. That is more than 12 billion square inches.

"You've got to get a coyote in that area to step in a four-square inch spot," Sheppard said. "You need to have knowledge of these animals, you need to kind of know what makes these animals tick and how you fit into it. You can sometimes learn more by not catching an animal in a trap than by catching one because you can learn so much from just being out there."

While there is an inherent risk of catching a non-target species, Sheppard and Henrekin agree this risk can be mitigated through education and experience.

"I think the vast majority of trappers are responsible, ethical, morally fit people but the newspapers want to grab a hold of Cupcake and [other incidents] that happen infrequently that sells the story," Henrekin said. "To me that is very frustrating. I know how infrequently that happens if it is done properly."

A dog named Cupcake was killed in a conibear trap in Rock Creek in 2007. Sheppard said this incident could have been avoided in two ways through education.

First, had the trapper gone to a trapper's education class put on by the Montana Trappers Association (MTA), he would have known the trap was set in an illegal manner. He also would have been taught the ethics of sharing the environment with others.

"Even if it is legal to set a trap here, if there are going to be people with their pets, it is a really poor place to do it," Sheppard said.

Second, if the dog owner had taken a class, he would have been shown how the trap works, how to release it and could possibly have released Cupcake.

"I don't want to catch your dog," said Sheppard. "One it causes the dog trauma, two it usually causes the person trauma and three it just took that trap that could be catching my target animal out of commission. It is counter productive. As a result, if I know people are going to be using an area, I'm going to go out of my way to stay the heck out of there."

Henrekin said several minor changes can be made when placing a trap to reduce the risk of catching a non-target species. Changes include using different traps and sets as well as adjusting the trap's locations, even as little as a few feet.

"Education is the key," Henrekin said. "Being a responsible, successful trapper has as much to do with knowing where not to set a trap as it does with how many wolves you can catch."

Sheppard said that trappers have been trying to get mandatory trapper education put through the legislature. He said the last trapping bill that hit the legislature in 2019 included the education requirement, which the MTA supported. However the rest of the bill was, "unworkable...because it was so anti-trapping."

In the 2021 Legislative Session, Senator Pat Flowers, D-Bozeman, has proposed Senate Bill 60 which would require some resident trappers to take a trapper education course. It passed its third reading in the Senate Feb. 22. Sheppard, who is the education chairmen for the MTA, said MTA has been instrumental in putting this legislation together with the Environmental Quality Council. Although he is aware of a few minor changes since being introduced into the Senate, MTA continues to support it as of Feb. 22.

Henrekin estimates that only a small percentage of the population traps and another small percentage of the population adamantly opposes it. The rest don't have enough knowledge of the sport to have a strong opinion.

"I think most [trappers] are more than willing to answer questions, show people what this stuff is, what we use, why we use it to help them understand the facts behind it as opposed to [the rhetoric]," said Henrekin.

Most recreational trappers have very personal reasons they love the sport.

Sheppard enjoys trapping because of the educational process, the role it plays in wildlife management and seeing his influence on his environment.

"The reason I'm trapping ain't to kill as many critters as I can. The reason I'm trapping is to be out there and enjoy the experience," Sheppard said. "It is like going to school every day, except the books that I'm reading from are out there. I see how these animals act, react or don't to me, to various things I do and to other animals ... we can't take ourselves out of the equation."

Sheppard added trapping is a commitment to oneself and the resource that is greater than that of other sports. Trappers must check their traps regularly, sometimes daily, which forces them to be out regardless of the weather or other obligations.

"And then you just killed this absolute, magnificent, beautiful creature and you want to do the absolute best that you can by the critter you killed and utilize the resource to the absolute best that you can," Sheppard said.

For Henrekin trapping is a passion. He loves the continual, but very challenging, learning process that forces him to get outside every day to check his traps.

"To see what is going on in the woods is what does it for me – reading the sign, seeing the tracks, seeing where the deer are moving, seeing what the lions are doing, seeing what the wolves are doing, trying to figure out what they are doing, why they are there, seeing the different weather patterns that come in that make the deer and the elk move differently and learning all this stuff there is to learn if you just open your eyes and pay attention to what is going on," Henrekin said.

Sheppard is an instructor at the Fur Takers of America Trapper's College at Purdue University in Indiana. He said of the 60 students that he has each year, more than half are from government agencies. He credits this increase to several states eliminating or heavily restricting the opportunities for recreational trapping.

"That could be done by [Rob] or by me in a recreational manner. It would not cost the state or the taxpayers and it could be handled plumb fine. But here the government is paying them to come to this college to learn better," said Sheppard. "If managed correctly the resource will be there and it don't have to be paid for by the government."

Sheppard added the Trapper's College teaches the students how to skin, flesh, stretch and handle furs as well as how to make the best catch. Recreational trappers can be fined for wasting fur. However, government agencies are not allowed to utilize animals except when occasionally mounting them for educational purposes.

"The animals are still being trapped [by the government] in states where recreational trapping is illegal," said Sheppard. "The majority of the game that wildlife services kills goes in the dump. To me that is a waste of a valuable resource."

Kolbe said the trapping community has been at the forefront of developing new techniques and equipment, outlining ethics and safety, and developing other protocols and trainings. With the help of trappers, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies published the best management practices (BMPs) that have been incorporated by many states into regulations over the last 10-15 years.

"To trap well you need to be highly skilled, knowing the techniques of trapping and also the habits of the animals and habitats that those animals use," said Kolbe. "Like sport hunting of other species like deer and elk, the trappers are the most effective advocate for the conservation of these fur bearing species that we've got. If we lost that constituency you lose that advocacy that comes from that deep experience and passion and that is a real risk."

Sheppard said maintaining a viable population is something in which trappers have a vested interest. Not only do they want to have animals available to trap but they also want to see them in their natural state and preserve a renewable natural resource.

"I have learned an immense amount about nature and our part in it. I am still learning and will for sure never know it all," Sheppard said. "When someone that knows nothing about it wants to take it all away with no knowledge or care for anything but themselves it bothers me. It is ironic that the old ways and knowledge that these people want to get rid of are the very things that have helped preserve and maintain the very animals that they worship."

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In 1996, Dr. John Squires, a scientist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station, started the Blackfoot-Clearwater Canada Lynx Project. The project started because very little was known about lynx ecology in the lower 48 states at the time and there had been several petitions to put lynx on the endangered species list.

"The reason lynx were listed was not explicitly due to a threat of the species persistence. It was because existing land management plans were inadequate regulatory mechanisms," said Kolbe who started working on the project in the winter of 1997. "It was the lack of information that the judge cited as the reason to list the species in 2000 as threatened."

In order to capture a representative sample of lynx to be radio collared and released, FWP biologists met with the local trapping community. Kolbe said many trappers provided invaluable expertise and information about where to find lynx and how to catch them while others captured lynx for the project.

"That really jumpstarted the project and reduced that learning curve that we would have needed to go through to get the sample that we needed," said Kolbe who added that more than 100 lynx were captured by the end of the study. "It would have taken much longer for hired field technicians and paid biologists to become proficient in capturing lynx in a way that ensured their safety. We would not have been nearly as effective without that early and continued assistance from the local trappers."

"Without the base knowledge that has come up through the years from one person to another, they would lose this ability and it would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars more just to do a study," said Sheppard who was one of the trappers with the project.

A parallel story of utilizing the skill and knowledge of recreational trappers in partnership with FWP started in November 2020. Volunteer trappers in southwestern Montana have been capturing marten, a member of the weasel family, for translocation to the Little Belt Mountains in an effort to restore their historic population. Currently eight trappers have contributed. Biologists have translocated 30 marten as of Feb. 22.

"Trappers that have the expertise and the access to those animals have agreed to forgo that harvest and to donate those animals to restore a native population," Kolbe said. "It is harder and more work for them to trap in a way that ensures that the marten are healthy and able to be translocated. They are volunteering their time and their equipment because they care about the resource. They would like to see populations restored where marten historically occurred. It is a way they can use the expertise developed over years of fur trapping to conserve the species in the state."

Like the Lynx Project, Kolbe said the project would be possible without collaborating with recreational trappers, but would not have been practical.

"The fur trappers are experts and they know their areas and they know the habits of the animals and have built up that expertise over decades. For us to try and replicate that with hired staff would be extremely difficult and much more expensive," Kolbe said. "This project would not have happened without the partnership with the trappers that we've got."

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FWP obtained full authority to manage wolves in Montana upon the federal delisting of the Rocky Mountain gray wolf in May 2011. Trapping for wolves opened in 2012-2013. The wolf quota has increased from three to five per season which runs from Dec. 15 – Feb. 28.

Sheppard said that after trapping for 50 years, the introduction of the wolves changed everything to the point where he felt like he had to relearn everything due to this new outside influence.

"It changed the whole aspect of the whole outdoors from everything like foxes, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons to deer, elk and moose," Sheppard said. "I feel like I'm back in kindergarten. It is terrifically interesting."

Henrekin said when the wolves first were introduced in Montana, his mindset was that they weren't needed and they needed to be removed. While he still thinks there are too many of them and they need to be managed, they have earned his respect because of their intelligence and ability to survive.

Kolbe explained when wolves came back on the landscape they "really exploded." They had their first named pack in the Blackfoot in 2007 and by 2012 they had 14 packs that they recognized.

Since 2014, FWP has issued one wolf trapping permit annually on the Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area Game Range. Local FWP Wildlife Biologist Scott Eggeman said trappers harvest zero to three wolves annually with the permit. There is no indication that it is negatively affecting the wolf population at this time.

"Trapping wolves is just one more opportunity for sportsmen to interact with wildlife that is similar to archery hunting or rifle season," Eggeman said.

Kolbe said discussing the conservation of a species is very different than the ethical way to interact with that species and conduct that harvest.

"The voices that are loudest arguing for ending recreational trapping don't come at it from a species conservation perspective. It has more to do with the perceived, ethical treatment of the individual animal," Kolbe said. "That is a different conversation than what I'm able to have based on biology or species conservation."

"There is probably a large percentage of trappers that have a deeper respect and love for the animals that we are harvesting than other people. I guarantee that we know more about them and are a lot more based on reality than they are," Henrekin said. "If we quit trapping, what are the ramifications? We don't know them all."

"It is not universal that it is necessary," Kolbe said. "The point is trapping is a good management tool and it is also a sustainable one for the people that really value trapping as a past time. We should endeavor to continue to allow it as long as the species themselves are well managed and are conserved."

(Republished with permission)