Post by yihunt on Mar 10, 2009 7:35:01 GMT -4
Beaver trapping still thrives in Western Pennsylvania
Sunday, March 08, 2009
By Ben Moyer
Associated Press/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
In the American move West, there was gold and there were beaver.
Gold lured opportunists to rowdy camps that later declined to ghost towns and dust. But with prime pelts netting $65 each in colonial times, European demand for beaver was the original American stimulus package. The quest for fur established trade routes that stitched together a continent.
Though beaver lore is associated with the far West and the past, the skill and spirit of early pioneers thrives today among the fraternity of Western Pennsylvania trappers.
"It's a heritage thing," said John Wilkinson of Armbrust, who traps beaver in two states every winter. "Sometimes today, beaver doesn't pay as much as other fur, but a lot of trappers still enjoy going after beaver. In a way, it's nostalgia and history we're trying to keep alive."
Because of overtrapping, beavers were nearly extinct across North America and completely extirpated from Pennsylvania by the late 1800s.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beaver Bio
Castor canadensis
Weight: 25-70 pounds
Life Span: Up to 11 years in the wild
Population density: 1-8 colonies square mile
Food: Bark, leaves, twigs, roots of woody plants
Habitat: Streams, rivers, wetlands
Behavior: Monogamous. Females reported to mate for life. Mainly active at night, dawn and dusk.
Pennsylvania trapping season: Through March 31 (limits vary by Wildlife Management Unit.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Restoration efforts began in 1917 and were extremely successful," said Tom Hardisky, aquatic furbearer biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. "Substantial population growth was recorded during the 1920s and '30s. Due to widespread damage complaints, a regulated beaver harvest was initiated in 1934 [and] sustained and harvestable beaver populations have occurred in Pennsylvania from 1934 until today."
Beavers have returned to every county in Pennsylvania and the entire Mid-Atlantic region. Annual harvest varies with fur prices, weather and participation, but in Pennsylvania trappers generally take 6,000-10,000 beavers per year.
The tradition hasn't continued because it's easy.
"Beaver trapping is work from the word 'go,' " Wilkinson said. "First you have to scout the creek, find out where they're staying, traveling and feeding. And that's not something you can accomplish in tennis shoes. You have to get the right gear because the more you can get into their habitat the better. I wear Neoprene chest waders. Many times I've been standing next to the ice watching that cold water lap the top of my waders, just to get into places to trap."
Wilkinson is also the Westmoreland County leader of the Pennsylvania Trappers Association, an organization with 900 members across Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland, Greene and Fayette counties alone. He explained that responsible trappers are required by law and ethics to follow a demanding schedule.
"If you have an hour today to set a trap, you better have an hour every day until you pull that trap," Wilkinson said. "It doesn't matter if you are sick, tired, the weather is bad or you broke your leg. There's no excuse. You have to get out and check those traps. Game Commission regulations require that you check traps every 36 hours, but an ethical trapper is going to check every morning."
Even more work follows success.
"If you get a big one, you had better hope your truck is not too far away," Wilkinson continued. "A big beaver is not all that different from moving a deer except that you don't want to drag that fur on the ground. I was glad that when I caught my biggest one that I was only 25 yards from the truck."
Wilkinson's biggest beaver weighed 79 pounds, but he said adult Pennsylvania beavers average a little more than half that weight. Beavers are one of the largest rodent species in the world.
"Now you have to skin it, flense it and stretch it," he continued. "If you want to look at it that way, it doesn't pay much by the hour, but it comes at a time of year when things are slow outdoors and people are just itching to get out and spend time in the woods."
Spending quality time in the woods is what lures Paul Polansky of Youngwood to trap beaver.
"It's a way to share the outdoors. It's something I was brought up with since I was a kid," Polansky said. "Now, my son always goes with me, like I went with my dad. There is so much bad stuff for kids to get into -- trapping is a good, honest outdoor hobby that can keep them out of trouble. He's 15 now and he's been going with me since he was 4. We've shared a lot out there."
Like the Rocky Mountain trappers of the 1800s, Wilkinson feels the urge to trap beaver on new ground. Late every winter he travels to North Carolina's coastal plain in search of pelts.
"Years ago, when you were only allowed to catch six beavers in Pennsylvania, I had my quota after a few days but I still wanted to do more trapping," he said. "I happened to make a phone call to the president of the North Carolina Trappers Association and he told me there was no way I could trap all the beaver they had down there. He gave me a couple of landowner contacts and I've been going south ever since."
Wilkinson caught that 79-pounder somewhere in the Cape Fear River system in the southeastern part of the state. He declined to be more precise on location.
In modern America, there are often motivations beyond nostalgia or the price of a pelt to manage beaver populations.
"I have nothing against beavers, but they can be a serious problem for municipal governments," said township supervisor Robert Schiffbauer of South Union Township in Fayette County. "There's a spot along Redstone Creek where the beavers keep damming and it floods two streets. They just keep coming back. We have manhole covers on those streets and our sewage line goes down through there. When the water backs up we get substantial infiltration into the system and we can get overload at the treatment plant. Our problem is that the DEP may levy a moratorium on additional inputs and we could end up spending millions to correct the problem. That's tough for a municipality today. It seems a little farfetched that beavers could cost that much, but it's reality."
"Beaver complaints in the county are numerous," said Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer Matthew Kramer, whose district covers Beaver County. "Trappers, with a little effort, should reap the benefits,"
According to Wilkinson there is yet another motivation to trap beaver.
"It's very good meat," Wilkinson said. "If you get all the fat off you can't tell it from prime rib. It's dark, sweet and tender."
Selling pelts, though, remains the bottom line for trappers, and prospects don't look good at the moment, which could be a problem for Schiffbauer and other municipal officials.
"Prices this year were expected to be very high," Wilkinson said. "But fur is no different than any other part of the economy. Back in September when everything else went to pot, so did fur. Now prices are way low compared to the last couple of years."
Regardless of price, both Wilkinson and Polansky glean satisfaction from trapping ethically and well.
"It's different from hunting," Wilkinson said. "You may be out squirrel hunting with a shotgun and if you see a squirrel within 30 yards you can shoot it. With trapping, if that critter is 30 yards away, I'm not going to see it. [Trappers] have to give that critter a reason to step on a 2-inch square. You have to learn to read the landscape. You have to pay attention, and I like that."
First published on March 8, 2009 at 12:00 am
Sunday, March 08, 2009
By Ben Moyer
Associated Press/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
In the American move West, there was gold and there were beaver.
Gold lured opportunists to rowdy camps that later declined to ghost towns and dust. But with prime pelts netting $65 each in colonial times, European demand for beaver was the original American stimulus package. The quest for fur established trade routes that stitched together a continent.
Though beaver lore is associated with the far West and the past, the skill and spirit of early pioneers thrives today among the fraternity of Western Pennsylvania trappers.
"It's a heritage thing," said John Wilkinson of Armbrust, who traps beaver in two states every winter. "Sometimes today, beaver doesn't pay as much as other fur, but a lot of trappers still enjoy going after beaver. In a way, it's nostalgia and history we're trying to keep alive."
Because of overtrapping, beavers were nearly extinct across North America and completely extirpated from Pennsylvania by the late 1800s.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beaver Bio
Castor canadensis
Weight: 25-70 pounds
Life Span: Up to 11 years in the wild
Population density: 1-8 colonies square mile
Food: Bark, leaves, twigs, roots of woody plants
Habitat: Streams, rivers, wetlands
Behavior: Monogamous. Females reported to mate for life. Mainly active at night, dawn and dusk.
Pennsylvania trapping season: Through March 31 (limits vary by Wildlife Management Unit.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Restoration efforts began in 1917 and were extremely successful," said Tom Hardisky, aquatic furbearer biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. "Substantial population growth was recorded during the 1920s and '30s. Due to widespread damage complaints, a regulated beaver harvest was initiated in 1934 [and] sustained and harvestable beaver populations have occurred in Pennsylvania from 1934 until today."
Beavers have returned to every county in Pennsylvania and the entire Mid-Atlantic region. Annual harvest varies with fur prices, weather and participation, but in Pennsylvania trappers generally take 6,000-10,000 beavers per year.
The tradition hasn't continued because it's easy.
"Beaver trapping is work from the word 'go,' " Wilkinson said. "First you have to scout the creek, find out where they're staying, traveling and feeding. And that's not something you can accomplish in tennis shoes. You have to get the right gear because the more you can get into their habitat the better. I wear Neoprene chest waders. Many times I've been standing next to the ice watching that cold water lap the top of my waders, just to get into places to trap."
Wilkinson is also the Westmoreland County leader of the Pennsylvania Trappers Association, an organization with 900 members across Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland, Greene and Fayette counties alone. He explained that responsible trappers are required by law and ethics to follow a demanding schedule.
"If you have an hour today to set a trap, you better have an hour every day until you pull that trap," Wilkinson said. "It doesn't matter if you are sick, tired, the weather is bad or you broke your leg. There's no excuse. You have to get out and check those traps. Game Commission regulations require that you check traps every 36 hours, but an ethical trapper is going to check every morning."
Even more work follows success.
"If you get a big one, you had better hope your truck is not too far away," Wilkinson continued. "A big beaver is not all that different from moving a deer except that you don't want to drag that fur on the ground. I was glad that when I caught my biggest one that I was only 25 yards from the truck."
Wilkinson's biggest beaver weighed 79 pounds, but he said adult Pennsylvania beavers average a little more than half that weight. Beavers are one of the largest rodent species in the world.
"Now you have to skin it, flense it and stretch it," he continued. "If you want to look at it that way, it doesn't pay much by the hour, but it comes at a time of year when things are slow outdoors and people are just itching to get out and spend time in the woods."
Spending quality time in the woods is what lures Paul Polansky of Youngwood to trap beaver.
"It's a way to share the outdoors. It's something I was brought up with since I was a kid," Polansky said. "Now, my son always goes with me, like I went with my dad. There is so much bad stuff for kids to get into -- trapping is a good, honest outdoor hobby that can keep them out of trouble. He's 15 now and he's been going with me since he was 4. We've shared a lot out there."
Like the Rocky Mountain trappers of the 1800s, Wilkinson feels the urge to trap beaver on new ground. Late every winter he travels to North Carolina's coastal plain in search of pelts.
"Years ago, when you were only allowed to catch six beavers in Pennsylvania, I had my quota after a few days but I still wanted to do more trapping," he said. "I happened to make a phone call to the president of the North Carolina Trappers Association and he told me there was no way I could trap all the beaver they had down there. He gave me a couple of landowner contacts and I've been going south ever since."
Wilkinson caught that 79-pounder somewhere in the Cape Fear River system in the southeastern part of the state. He declined to be more precise on location.
In modern America, there are often motivations beyond nostalgia or the price of a pelt to manage beaver populations.
"I have nothing against beavers, but they can be a serious problem for municipal governments," said township supervisor Robert Schiffbauer of South Union Township in Fayette County. "There's a spot along Redstone Creek where the beavers keep damming and it floods two streets. They just keep coming back. We have manhole covers on those streets and our sewage line goes down through there. When the water backs up we get substantial infiltration into the system and we can get overload at the treatment plant. Our problem is that the DEP may levy a moratorium on additional inputs and we could end up spending millions to correct the problem. That's tough for a municipality today. It seems a little farfetched that beavers could cost that much, but it's reality."
"Beaver complaints in the county are numerous," said Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer Matthew Kramer, whose district covers Beaver County. "Trappers, with a little effort, should reap the benefits,"
According to Wilkinson there is yet another motivation to trap beaver.
"It's very good meat," Wilkinson said. "If you get all the fat off you can't tell it from prime rib. It's dark, sweet and tender."
Selling pelts, though, remains the bottom line for trappers, and prospects don't look good at the moment, which could be a problem for Schiffbauer and other municipal officials.
"Prices this year were expected to be very high," Wilkinson said. "But fur is no different than any other part of the economy. Back in September when everything else went to pot, so did fur. Now prices are way low compared to the last couple of years."
Regardless of price, both Wilkinson and Polansky glean satisfaction from trapping ethically and well.
"It's different from hunting," Wilkinson said. "You may be out squirrel hunting with a shotgun and if you see a squirrel within 30 yards you can shoot it. With trapping, if that critter is 30 yards away, I'm not going to see it. [Trappers] have to give that critter a reason to step on a 2-inch square. You have to learn to read the landscape. You have to pay attention, and I like that."
First published on March 8, 2009 at 12:00 am