Hi all,
I have been trapping beaver for a large coperation in NY .I have been doing the job as a recrational trapper .Iam also a liceanced NWCO or ADC . As of tonight the beaver season is closed . the coperation will have to apply for a permit for me to continue. Although I have been doing it for the fur , I did have to have the proper insurance and signed a contract. The corperation did reimburse me for the insurance cost (more then what I was carrying).The problem is I managed one beaver out of the area that weighed in around 60 lbs. after that nothing for almost two weeks,I have a trail camera that was monitoring the culverts that this beaver was plugging up.Up until april 4th there was no sign of any more . Now I have video of one back ,plugging culvert. My contract ends tonight. I am going to propose a price to continue ,being that I will no longer be able to harvest the pelts. The problem has to be address for the reason of homes on a lake upstream that were close to flooding out.The corperation owns the land the culverts are on , and they already started clearing them . If I were to continue what would be a fair price to charge for just trapping beavers? I do have to travel an hour and half to get to the place I have been trapping.

I charge a hundred set up and a hundred per beaver , if I was to drive that fare I would also charge for my drive time . Maybe only set 330 so you don't have to check them everyday , sometimes drown slides don't always work , can't chance them on a 48 hour check

Sounds like no amount of money would be too much, too far really. You can still keep and skin the beaver after the season, though they will be getting springy, shedding out with a lot of down under. I would not include fur price, in or out of season, irrelevant to pricing. You are providing a service so you need to get payed for it. If they say, "you get something for the beaver." Say yes, I will give the beaver to you to skin if you like and you can pay me for the service. I have offered many times, all have declined. Then I ask, "would you mind if I kept the beaver if you don't want it." They agree.

Don't sell yourself short and don't chase spooky beaver. If there is a spooked beaver, give him some room, time to settle in. Also, beaver are moving all over the place now. You could take the beaver that have been there or just moved in and in a week or two get another batch of new beaver only to have the land owner accuse you of not taking them all. They sometimes move in two or three times, my record was five times in one season, twice the same year, very rainy.

thanks guys. they paid me 1750.00 to trap the one . like I said they wanted me to get the liability insurance to go on property . There are houses up on a lake that are close to being flooded out. we have not had a lot of rain ,and they are clearing out the culverts. I'm not sure how long it would take a beaver to plug them back up to get there desired depth. I fear if this year bring much rain there would be considerable damage.I was thinking more in the line of 6,000.00 for the rest . or telling them to keep clearing the culverts till next trapping season ,then I'll go back for free. also lots of rats some otter signs,mink even yote scat . so could rack up a nice fur check in the very least. The funny thing is the place the culverts are on is being blamed by the town of throwing stuff in the stream ,also not cleaning up after Irean. They did not beleave it was beavers till i cought one . so as far as what i can get for the pelts or if they want the beavers them self is not an issue.Now as it stands they beleave it was only one and I became a town hero....lol I have not disclosed the video of the other culprit(s).Guess I'll give it a go and see what happens. I do know that it is a big company and they do have deep pockets....

I find it hard to beleave they paid you 1.750 to trap one beaver . Sounds like a story

I'll send you a copy of the contract if you like . just keep in mind that this is New York .I am dealing with a company that is quite large .Oh yeah the part of N.Y. that most New Yorkers do not like to admit is part of the state . NYC, Long Island , and Westchester. You know what they say about ASSUME. P.S. I get no less then 350 per week to set a trap for coons ,skunk ...ect......and that is the low price ..bigger companies get 850.00 per week .we also must check our traps every 24 hrs. here.Funny thing pesky . check this out...

Ya there's pesky critters all over the place but only one in Michigan , must be a nut ball never seen anybody handle a possum like that , possums come with a handle

Dude, if you're getting that kind of money to trap beaver,at todays fur prices, why would you even consider making them a deal to trap just for the fur??

Yeah you gotta see the way I handle snakes and scorpions ...lol I trap to help control the population of our furbearers I love to trap .... and I always wanted to catch a beaver.we don't have any on long island....although I live in a place that you gotta be rich to be poor here. Money is not some thing I really care too much for . Give me a chance to spend some time outside and admire mother nature ,and I'd do it for a penny or less...

Pesky, I find it a lot easier to believe the 1750 story than the "I'll do it for fur" story.

The job came by me from one of the town residents who's house was about to be flooded. this all started when Irean came threw. they were battling with the mall ever since. The resident called DEC being that the mall claimed it was beavers . The DEC told her to call the pres. of NYSTA. said that it was an open beaver season and they would find someone willing to trap for the pelts. The pres. e-mailed me saying with the details not sure if I would be willing to travel that far , but knew I wanted a chance at beaver. Of course I travel up and down the eastern sea board in search of snakes and such trhat do not inhabit long island ...so why why not . The payment of 1750 is what it cost for the insurance that the properity owner wanted for me to trap there . They offered to pay for it if I was willing to do the service for free till the end of the season. 3 weeks of going upstate and back to stay in compliance with the law of checking every 24 hours. Look at it like this . Millions of dollars were at stake from the daming of these culverts . the money they paid me to trap is just a drop in the bucket to them. Now weather more moved in or I just did'nt manage to get the whole colony ,there is still the threat of the damage . will they pay 6000 for me to finish it we will see. Was just looking for a little advise as trapping beavers was new to me . Though not like building an ion engine .Figure my fellow trapping counterparts would give me some insite to what I should charge . Maybe you all need to rethink how much good (if you wanna call it that)we doing for civilization by controling the population of these so called problems and get paid accordingly .Personally I would rather leave the beavers to flood out the homes and give them more habitat,but we all know that if we don't do it some one else will.

It's kinda hard for us to judge exactly what you should charge. Being that you are in NYC, your market will be different than ours here in GA. I charge a flat rate for either a week or two weeks of trapping services. Depending on ride time and accessability, price may go up. I know in general my overhead costs--insurance, vehicle, fuel, trap replacement, supplies, etc. then i figure in my time and come up with a price--no matter if i catch 1 beaver or 20.

The way i look at it, a landowner with beaver flooding or tree damage doestn't care how many are there, he just want's them gone and the damage stopped. So the flat rate works out so far for me. If i do the fur, then that is just a little extra $$. I am going to make my $$ from solving the problem, not selling the fur. If you are one of the few up there that can trap beaver, then you can probabally set the market price up there.

Don't do anything for fur, a giveaway. One local guy used to charge $50 per beaver out of season many years ago, and free during fur season. So in summer he tossed them for $50 and in season he skinned, scraped, stretched and dried for $20. Maybe I missed something?

I started trapping for shear enjoyment. Part of the enjoyment I get is out of how well I can handle the fur (put up,fleshing..ect..)I will not say that it is easy , and have to say that I make more trapping for WDC then pleasure. This past season I donated all ,but my choice fur that I kept for myself as wall hangers. I did trap with a friends father when I young .I was always interested in nature.As I aged I took up hunting .Married young and the guns went when the kids came (as per wifes request).Took up fishing and have been avid in that till last year when I discovered that the DEC still had record of my huntin certifacate. Now on wife number two ,and kids all grown. I went back to it , also looked into trappers ed course. This past season .I was more interested in catching species that I never did before. had coon possum and muskrat on list from my younger years ,but wanted as many more species as I could get this first season . I only managed to add red fox and beaver,but am very happy with that. I paint for a living also did many other construction jobs . When investigating about trapping I came across the NWCO application. So I registered to take test , studied off the comp. took test and got liceance.Now as I joined these forums and read the threads I learned much valuable info from all you .I also heard stories of how people were being charged 800 or more to catch raccoons in NYC. So I have been slowly making a transformation to WDC work and trying to leave the painting work behind. I love doing the WDC work and feel thats were I belong. Again its more about happiness then money,as many of my jobs so far that took more then a week I have never charged more.I do offer every cliant my sevice free when the open season comes around. We average 100 coons per sq mile here on long island . Aside from the duck , upland bird ,and deer hunting . all other types of hunting (coon,fox,ext)and trapping are not pursued here by many. This is causing high populations ,and from there any real trapper or hunter know what that leads to. Unfortunatly most city dwellers are afraid of coons , skunk .and rats weather they are norway rats or muskrats.This has made it so many large companies can charge outragious rates for their services. Also here on long island , majority are millionairs. The part of the island I ;live is low class with the average yearly property tax being 8000.00 But also puts me in the middle were all the yuppies from NYC pass to their summer homes in the Hamptons. Dispite all the tv shows and hype about NYC and long isand (where Queens Brooklyn,) are found . we out east are mostly suburbia and country with many farms ,(now becoming vineyards this past decade).So As I said before who cares about the money.I love doing it though I do get 350 most always . I have done it for 100.00 for people who can't afford it.And would do it for nothing too.

With a property tax of 8 grand, you can't afford to do anything for nothing.

The drive is 3 hours round trip. You're trapping for free for the price of fur. Your property taxes are $8,000. The price of gas is maybe $4.25 in your neighborhood. You have to check your traps every day. You're not in business---You're in debt!

Mark one down for Ole! When I was working another job full time and doing ADC work part time, I started to realize that my part time job was making more money than my full time job. I think some of these guys are using their full time job to pay for their ADC work and that's just crazy!