Less Coons on the market will probably result in less overall demand. If garment makers quit being able to get Coons they will find substitutes and likely not come back to wild fur. I'm not going to heavily target coons under 20 dollars, it's simply not worth the time for me any longer. I'll keep catching a few around my place and maybe I'll skin them but to get serious numbers here requires serious time.

I'm putting together some Weasel boxes, maybe I'll trap a couple Coyotes if they bother my dogs, get rid of the possums and maybe a few Beavers cause I like the meat. Probably catch 20 animals or less a year. That is what trapping will be to me unless prices go up 10x what they are now.

The ethics is in managing wildlife numbers to fend off damage or disease. The fur is only a perk.

But yes, I'm not happy tossing them in a bag to go to the dump seems quite wasteful. I've often wondered if I could hot compost them and at least get some fertilizer.

Pretty greasy for that it would kill the soil maybe.

Probably

If you have good quality fur and you handle it right there’s money to be made, it’s out there if you hustle for it. I have all my regular furs sold already and they are not even caught yet.

I will trap them this year, on purpose, and along with my other target animals.
I have a couple farmers who's income is sweet corn, and coon are their #1 enemy. They can try to manage coon all year for $0 value in off-season, or i can come in during season and make a couple bucks on them. Whic is better option?
Also, I am in coon country here too. Nice, big, heavy coon when fully prime in december. Populations are high. Am I going to long line them? No. But I will put a lot of coon traps out at places I need to and want to.
I put up a LOT of less than a buck rats back in 90s, and had a ball.
In late 90s and early 90s when coyotes weren't worth crap I sold 45 of them finished for average of $4, seriously.
But I had a ball. Buyer here wouldn't touch carcass coyotes back then.
In 40+ years of trapping ive seen some real wild swings in prices.
If I get 40 to 50 nice big prime skinned coon this year, and let's say I only get $2 each on them, thats a nice kick to whatever else i catch and sell like coyotes, fox, cats, badger, beaver, mink, whatever.
I'm a hobby trapper. I dont hunt deer, I fish a little, but this is primarily my winter outdoor fun and exercise. Markets won't move by my little haul. My boys enjoy it, we always take a friend or two of theirs along too. Nothing more fun than a kid new to trapping in the truck with us on checks.
Besides, I keep my 12 or so farms access by continuing to trap them year in and year out. When I stop there will be others move in. Always are, always will be.
So yes I'm trapping coon this year. Not hard effort all out, but 40 to 50 and will have fun doing it too.
Jim

Coons are merely incidentals on my grinner line.

I might have to buy a new freezer even though I haven't set a coon trap in 3yrs, they come with the territory. They don't go to market though.

Classic line!!

I've been donating my catches to Wilmington College in Ohio. I have a friend, who teaches Biology there. The opossums are used for a study of the diseases and parasites in opossums in Ohio. The other furbearers are used as lab specimens and to feed their dermestid beetle cultures. I've been giving them my deer heads too.

Some of the other colleges, universities and even highschools, in your areas, may appreciate being donated furbearers too.

Keith

I'll trap as many as I can. I love doing it, and I'll tan them to sell. If I can't sell, then I'll make something out of them.

Question for all the coon trappers......who among us own anything (garment, hat, coat, bedspread, etc etc) that's made out of coons? I don't, but this might be the year to make something. I've got a few tanned ones, and with a few more maybe it'll be enough to make a blanket.

Trying to think of a better way to ask the question. If you trap something that in the past has been considered a valuable furbearer, is one then obligated to put up the fur? Or now treat these like a rat or mouse or other vermin....or as some do with carp or other trash fish. Just throw them up on the bank?

And I guess one also has to make the distinction of what is legal....seasons and all that. Out of season, I can trap my place to limit damage, but not the neighbors for the fun or profit. But what about in season? Same coon there that come here to cause me grief year round, but trap them there to leave them there just to be rid of them? Like throwing a carp up on the bank.

In back of my mind, seems like bad form, but wondered what others think?

And to give some insight......populations of both coon and deer have grown so high, one could probably trap 50 coon and shoot 30 deer and leave both where they fell and it would qualify as a community service project.

Below is a chart that shows wild fur prices in WI from 1930 to 2010. I could not find data for the last decade. I am not saying to trap coon or not to trap coon, as that is the choice each of us will make. The interesting thing to me is how harvest mirrors prices so during the roughly 60 years of lower prices out of the 80 years we let those animals die of whatever causes that came to be. Interesting that trapping has survived decades of low price and rebounded quickly and strongly. In our current instant gratification climate will it survive until the next upswing? Also note the significant increase in hunting of those species where hunting is an allowable option. The nice thing about hunting for our culture now is that we don't need to check and manage lines in a timely manner we can pick and choose the times we want to go or not go.
I know this is only WI DNR data so it will not reflect other regions or states that have different species or very different qualities of species.
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Bryce

Yes but you catch that mouse if it's in your house or shop chewing or peeing on everthing. Do you ever set a mouse trap out in the fields. Doubt it. That logic is ridiculous...

You trap rats in the barn or garden don't you?

Mice eat stuff in my sheds, raccoons eat stuff in the woods. I'll trap them where they eat.

My nick name in high school was coony

So let me get this straight. Trapping free, (or should I say at a loss) to help out farmers that charges thousands to hunt the wildlife on their land that you saved for them by trapping predator's.

I guess my question is why does anyone care what anyone else traps? The whole argument of it flooding the market to me just sounds like a liberal saying "you can't do this because I don't like it."

I don't target coon down here because they're tiny compared to the Iowa coon I am used to and there is REALLY no market for tiny coon. Sure, I could skin them and sell the meat but I'd much rather just trap something more profitable. That said, if I wanted to trap coon, I would, and sure wouldn't care who was offended by it.