WOW! What I consider one of the dumbest posts I ever made has sure gotten responses from all over. Keep them coming. I never realized that there was such a difference of opinion.

Thank God for the Internet. I would never have known about what's going on in Georgia, Canada, Texas, or even other areas of my home state without it.

It's kind of amazing because I would say that our company has had it pretty darn easy compared to the rest of you, but there isn't hardly a post on here that I can't sympathize with.

Keep this up and I will have enough information to put together another column in WCT.

When you cut down fur trappers while calling yourself a ADC TRAPPER then you are no different than a anti period its like a mother eating her young . ADC encompasses a lot more than just trapping .so why call yourself a trapper ? Call yourself a specialist or professional or whatever strokes your ego fact is the trapping industry surely dont need folks within its ranks that call themself trappers cutting the rest off at the knee .there are criminals or law breakers in all parts of society but that shouldnt mean they are all criminals .

3273, that's exactly why I use the term NWCO and avoid using any form of the word trapper. What I do is so far removed from fur trapping that I deserve my own separate license.

I would be very surprised to find more than just a relative handful of WCOs who aren't fur trappers or haven't been in the past. Fur trapping is where this business started.

Maybe it started there but I for one have never sold a pelt in my life. I also think you would be surprised that I am far from being alone in that. In my years training NWCOs for another company I can not recall a single tech that came to us with fur trapping experience. Some had trapped as biology students in college or as PCOs some had members of the family that had but none had sold a pelt either.
Even within the entire company there was only a single fur trapper in the lot, one of the two owners the other owner was a pco entomologist.

This pattern is being repeated all across the industry with founders and owners being the only link to the fur trapping past. Even less so on the guys coming to the industry from the pco ranks.

I would dare say you would be hard pressed to find your average nwco technician that has any actual fur trapping experience in the mainline outfits in this state. Heck most of them weren't even born yet when the last bomb ended.

Something can be learned from both groups and drawing a line in the sand does nothing but drive a wedge between us. We need to working with each other rather than against each other.

I'm not sure I know of a wco around here who hasn't fur trapped. Demographics I would guess. I don't get to see the big city operations.

If you catch an animal during fur season, are you allowed to keep it?

Geography too!

I am pretty sure if I never relocated to Florida in my high school years and stayed in Michigan I probably would.

But I never sold a pelt in my life either but this is Florida - no demand.

warrior has hit the nail on the head. I am the only one in the nearly twenty people that comprise our company and our largest competitor's company that ever trapped for fur.

I feel the same way that most of the franchises feel when it comes to hiring help: It's a lot easier to teach a salesman to trap than it is to teach a trapper how to sell.

Hiring someone with trapping experience around here is difficult. If we get someone who hunts, we feel fortunate. I don't know of any confrontations between ADC guys and fur trappers in this part of Wisconsin and I haven't heard of any real complaints from the rest of the state either. And yes sqs, we can all keep any hides caught during the open season because we all need fur trapping licenses to operate. ( But we don't keep any and we especially relocate fur bearers during the season so our fur trapper and coon hunting friends can get a crack at them )

I may be wrong but,if you drive a truck for a living,you are a truck driver. If you work on roofs for a living, you are a roofer. If you butcher pigs for a living, you are a butcher. If you catch critters in a TRAP for a living, you are a TRAPPER. You caan call it what you want to, but your still a TRAPPER. Period

What if you exclude bats, apply pesticide, install chimney caps, cull deer, pick up road kill, install bird barrier, clean out attics, install insulation, repair homes....

Remove honeybees and stinging insects, search for snakes, consult for habitat modification, haze geese and vultures, rescue injured and orphaned wildlife. When I do set traps I target more non furbearers like squirrels, chipmunks, armadillos and cats than I do furbearers.

Trapper I may be but fur trapper I ain't.

In business never leave money laying on the table !! Most of the WCOS I know consider themselves problem solvers more then trappers.


You would be a trapper if all you did is trap, trap, ,trap then you would be a trapper. Selling your furs and meat and living off the land and grid. Few of us left in North America fit my definition.

You need a few more skills other then trapping to survive in the business world of today.

Most WCO's would starve if they just offered trapping as their one and only skill.

Most ADC guys and WCO's get it that the offending animal may make the phone ring
but its all the additional services you need to offer to keep the doors open.

I concur 100% with WARRIOR and DAVEK

We also provide psychological support to our clients so we have to add that to our list of duties.

How many fruit cake cases do you run into thru the course of a year.Paranoia and phobias to name a couple that some folks have issues with. We get lots of practice here putting folks at ease and educating them to what is real and fictional.

Some are an on going shrink session. You almost need psychiatric schooling to deal with some of these people.

Someone call a frickin WAAAAAAAmbulance. They're coming after my identity!!!

My money's still on the majority having been involved with fur. But I guess we all see things through the lens of our own experience.

There's certainly nothing wrong in being a WCO and not a fur trapper. I just think it's a minority in the business.

Every business requires a combination of skills and talents to be successful. Dealing with customers can be the most challenging part of any job. Even fur trappers have to deal with the home owners, public, buyers, etc.

I can't say that I ever sold a pelt.

I have sold thousands of furs over the years and still sell several hundred each spring and done thousands of ADC jobs over the years also. I guess you could say I am a blend of old school and new school all in one.

I am one with my two selves..............

Okay, enough on who and what we are. I think the point has been made. Can anyone see the main beef I have with being forced to obtain a commercial fur trapping license to do what I do when actual regulated furbearers probably comprise less than ten percent of my business activities. Not that I am opposed to licensing and regulation (actually I am but that's more philosophical at this point) what I bristle at is if I want to use a better tool (collarum) it must first pass the muster of other licensees (fur trappers) who will never experience what I do or think they know something about wehat I really do. Nor are we able in this state to require any type of training in the non furbearers that are our bread and butter to obtain the free permit. To cut to the chase bats are being killed right left and center in this state by the untrained but fully licensed NWCOs.