I agree 1,000% David. We don't have what you have there, though we do have a permit that we are required to carry for protected furbearer species if we are going to capture, handle, relocate or euthanize (as law permits). To be told I have to carry a trappers license would indeed put me in a category with fur trappers and though I was once a fur trapper, I do nothing remotely related these days.

The govt. agencies that manage fish and wildlife state wise in some states are well educated on this issue and in others it seems folks just want to lump it and call it "nuisance trapping" when as displayed in this thread there are folks all over this continuum and though some do mainly "trap" others do only a small element of trapping or a portion, rather than mainline.

In terms of marketing and being a business, in some states folks might instantly think I need a trapper when they have a wildlife problem, whereas in others hearing you run a wildlife control business might not bring "trapper" to mind.

To each his own, but to the regulations and differentiation end of things I'm in the boat where I call myself a wildlife management and consulting company and if I listed what I do, you'd not see trapper present in my current business model. I have a few hundred traps of various types that cover the spread in my "warehouse" but the closest I come to "trapper" is urban coyote issues and usually that involves more community meetings and education and site visits than it does actual paying clients who need control or removal.

I don't mind saying I'm in favor of training, I'm in favor of standards, I'm in favor of a professional image for the industry (not talking about your uniform or lack of) and I'm in favor of states requiring a bit of license and permit to show you are a professional.

I know that rubs many people the wrong way as its seen as big brother telling you what to do, or you don't need some piece of paper to tell you how to do the job, or what are they going to do with my fees I pay thats worth my dime, etc...

I'm in the other camp and will remain there, so many industries have codes, plumbers, electricians, construction, etc.... it helps provide some guidelines and to me that is the basis of a good solid presence in this country.

I too have seen a ridiculous amount of bad acts in the last 3 years since launching this company and though I won't put them here for folks to use against this industry as bad examples, they are folks who admitted to clients they really didn't know what they were doing in some cases and in others they flat out lied until called out on it after things went south.....

We all know it happens, why then do so many fight against getting folks some training and help just as folks try to do on this forum when someone new asks questions about how to best live trap a woodchuck, or evict flyers, or bats, etc....

Training should not be a scary word.... And standards should not be either, as I've said before, you had to take a test to hunt and trap in every state I've lived in, why then should an industry not have to do so to work with wildlife?

Justin

I carry a builders license...but does that mean that I am a builder? The license is for the activity performed....not what you are.

It's nice to see the fur Boom is back . This new market looks endless at this point . I've talked to WI guys pulled a 118.00 ave on there coon sent up to Nafa after last feb world record fur sale . Seen IL coyote guy caught early season ave close to hundred bucks . We pulled almost 17 dollar ave on muskrats at are local Clare sale . It's hard to say how high it will go this year but experts are all saying its looking better yet . Fur trapping is a trade just ADC work is a trade .
I think most most ADC guys are fur trappers . Is ADC trapping some times but a lot of the time people are looking for a fix to the problem and will hire the guy with the fix even if it cost more . House sales are up good news for the ADC guy with the fix . Be happy people times are getting better for both trades you both are a limited breed of people and the demand for both trades is growing . Peace brother

Once again I am downright shocked at this post. We just had Justin, Kugler, and Pesky, all respond in the last three posts and all of them are absolutely on target. The only thing I have to add is that if you looked at the success rate of full time ADC companies, I think you would be amazed at how few fur trappers make up the people in those companies. I am seriously wondering if even 10% of the people involved full time in this business ever sold a hide? ( On the bright side, this has a WCT story written all over it. )

Paul did you expect this subject to stir as much poop as it did? And just for the record I set my first trap in '68, 1968, and yes I've sold dried fur with my first going to F.C. Taylor. I still skin out my beaver but that's it and sell in the grease. I don't fur trap anymore.

Salys, it just stands to reason that super-cool people like you and I just had to be fur trappers! ( I know I'm old but I still wouldn't have thought that 1868 was the right answer ) Now that you mention it; how many of you sold your very first pelts to Sears and Roebuck?

Not pelts but I did buy some of my first bee keeping equipment and a gun from Sears and Roebuck.

Guns and ammo from Sears for sure not to mention Herter's. And a little tid bit when I worked in San Diego the father of the guy I worked with was a fur buyer for F.C.Taylor around 1910 and had the Alaska route, he had some cool pictures.

So Paul, Just curious. Was there much ADC work involving Dinosaurs? Would imagine they could raise havoc with a garden.

Full time/Part time. In my area, most wcos are part time. There's a lot of licenses out there and most do it on a part time basis. Don't count out the part timers.

It's probably true that the inner city guys would be less involved with fur but what about everyone else?

Paul was so good at what he does he was the cause of their extinction.

Better not say that in from of Footloose, They may use it as evidence!

ADC, since you're a Montanain, you might know the name Edward Hebbe III. He's a Deer Lodge resident and one of my best friends. He could fill you in on some of the older dinosaurs, since he's a few years older than me.

sgs, like you said earlier, has to do with location, I guess. The only part time ADC guy that I know, works for us.

warrior, first .22 I ever bought was a J.C. Higgins automatic. I can't even remember what happened to it.

Paul,
I have run into Mr. Hebbe a few times. He taught at my trappers education course a few years ago. He is a good friend of my fur trapping partner/teacher.
He is one of the few good old trappers that are left. Not one of these Yuppy trappers we seem to have a lot of now. If memory serves right he has a nickname
"The drive by trapper".

I do some ADC work in addition to my Insect Pest Control work. I end my PC work in October. November starts Fur trapping. So I guess I do both. I started trapping pocket gophers for the heck of it. Two weeks later I got paid $5 to catch a pocket gopher at my neighbors house. That was 1974. In 2004 I started my own business doing PC and ADC. I started Fur trapping in 1976 and proud to say I'm still doing it today.

I'm pretty much in step with Robb, DaveK and Wink.
The way I see it is that WCO's are somewhere between PCO's and fur guys. We do a type of pest control - in all its variations - but, like fur trappers, lean heavily on knowledge of the quarry and its control, much more so than do PCO's. My impression is that PCO's rely heavily on chemical solutions rather than knowledge of the animal being controlled.

Based on the conclusion you have drawn what does this mean to you? Fur trappers are not successful as ADC guys?

Our biggest problem here in NC is ADC guys masquerading as fur trappers. Here the wildlife commission has a list of fur trappers that is open to the public.
The public calls a licensed legit ADC company to do beaver work, don't like our prices and then calls "Earl" on the list of recreational trappers..he offers to do it at half our prices, just to make a quick buck. Happens all the time here. To me its kind of like a guy selling fresh fish out of the back of a pickup truck...without a commercial fishing license... AND he's getting free referrals from the gov. fisheries department.

Aaron Curtis, I didn't understand the question. Are you asking if fur trappers are successful at ADC work? Well I certainly was and nearly all the guys who started 25 or more years ago were also fur trappers that made a success of ADC work. All I'm saying is that trying to find and hire a trapper with an outgoing personality is as hard to find as an honest politician.

NCbatman, we have exactly the same thing here. I imagine that this may well be why I wrote this heading in the first place.

We just went through the separation (creating a specific license) for NWCO work here in Ohio.

It was certainly a rush job and not everything is exactly as we would have liked. Legislation was introduced by the pest control industry that we felt would not have been in the best interest of the Nuisance Wildlife Industry. We ended up working with the Ohio Pest Management Association, Ohio State Trappers Association, USDA Wildlife Services, and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife.

Basically, the legislature gave us less than two weeks to work it out or they were going to pass whatever they wanted!!! Compromises were made by every party involved and we came up with a new working program.

One of the major problems with the previous "permit" was it was almost impossible to revoke. In order to remove it, if the individual were to challenge the loss of their permit in court, was that it was simply a permit. You would have to have a judge revoke an individuals consumptive use hunting and fur-taker licenses to truly take their permit. Now we have a stand alone license, testing, and a means for certification. There is a structure in place for revoking a license for violation of the law. It still doesn't mean someone is operating a legitimate business, as there are other licenses required to run a commercial enterprise in Ohio.

If you would like to see what was done in Ohio visit www.owcoa.com and follow the link to read the laws that were adopted.

Don't know if this helps. Warrior, this may be good reference material for what to do in Georgia.

BTW I am a NWCO with a consumptive use background and still try to participate in that as much as I can.