If the market for fur totally crashes or stays crashed, at what point will state governments start offering bounties on coyotes and other fur bearers that can impact agriculture and other aspects of society? Obviously, a lot of guys won't trap if the money isn't there and a tipping point will be reached.

I'm curious what some of the old timers think.

Lots of work doing damage control.
There are trappers now making way more money doing damage control than they ever did fur trapping; not the same though, I would rather society look at fur bearing animals as an asset than a liability.

I agree with the asset philosophy.

I just don't see ranchers here paying people to trap coyotes, for example. I could be wrong.

If the ranchers aren't willing to pay someone to catch coyotes, let them do it on their own.

The cost of predator control should be part of the cost of producing meat.

Jim

I don't disagree at all. But bounties have been paid (and maybe still are in some places) in the past. Agriculture has a powerful lobby here and elsewhere. I am just wondering when this option will get recycled.

I am ignorant on the topic and was just thinking it through.

Most states would have govt do the control not trappers. Example California mountain lions.

In Montana, livestock producers, especially sheep producers, do pay into a pool for predator control. Mostly it is coyotes, but increasing numbers of wolves and bears put a dent in that fund too.

I think it would have be a more local government thing. Something like the way the parishes in Louisiana does their beaver bounty system. i think a statewide bounty system except would not go well except in states that generally dont have very many trappers to begin with traditionally.

For most states to even think about implementing something like what there was back during the bounty days that we've all read about, I think would require something like what just happened last year with COVID.

Some farmers will pay once if the finances involve make sense to them. Not that that always works.

Wasn't SD paying a bounty on coyote/coon scalps or tails the last few years ??

With USDA and APHIS already with their foot in the door it could happen to stop all private control by trapping. Several states are now paying bounty on problem varmints. Most are funded by the county.

I’m only 42, and no old timer for sure. Bounty for coyotes still exist in some counties here. $10 bounty for coyote ears here in my county and has been since I can remember. I bought my first truck with coyote ears and $3 average green coon hides. Biggest coon I ever caught in my life was on a high and dry coyote set miles from any water. That 36” coon brought me $8 dollars in 1994.

Took a lot of coon hides and ears to buy my first truck. $1200 bucks for an ‘81 Ford 3/4 ton.

The county makes you scalp the coyotes now to show that two ears belong to one coyote. Ears must be together.
Used to, you could just cut the tips of the ears off and they would pay, but some dishonest folks started cutting the tips of the ears off their calves when they worked them.

A bit west of here, in sheep and goat country, bounties still exist and are much higher. Most are among landowner associations. Coyotes aren’t generally a problem in those areas, as all landowners are working for a collective cause.

I agree with you Blaine that the farmers and ranchers won't pay for predator control. They will have the usda trappers do it at taxpayers expense or let one of the hundreds of guys with thermal take care of them like they do hogs. I buy from some guys who use thermal a ways North of me and they say their orders from landowners are usually "shoot anything with a heat signature except for the cows including but not limited to coyotes, hogs, opossum, coon, beaver, geese, deer, and feral dogs."

My high school senior son started working for a big dairy farmer and now I have a bunch of hay ground to trap gophers at $5 a head.

Utah pays $50 for each coyote. Ears with strip of skin attached from the top of the head keeping them together. May have to do part of the jawbone as well, but I know the connected ears is still required. GPS coordinates from where it was killed as well. Coyotes run scared in Utah.

AG producers in the U.S. can not operate anymore without govt . Cattle and sheep men are no different. If the government wont pay for predator control, losses will be compensated. That may not be 100% true but its close. Local water district contacted a buddy of mine to kill some beaver. I think they are angry that he wants to be paid. After all they are giving him permission to trap. It might be awhile before the value of a trapper is realized.

Got a call to get otter that killing fish in a pond. Total silence when I said I wanted 200 bucks a day till i was done and that as close as he was to the KAW river it was inevitable that new ones would move in

When I was a kid Iowa had a bounty on gophers. I remember it getting as high as 50 cents. Maybe that had the same buying power 5 bucks has now. I know I could get a pack of smokes for 50 cents at the gas station vending machine and a candy bar for 10 cents. Let's go Brandon.

The first couple of year I trapped in WY the bounty was 40 on coyotes and 10 on fox during the fur season the bounty on fox would drop when the funds got low. It was a county by county thing some would remove the lower jaw it was a pain but good money I guess.

The county i grew up in in nw iowa has a bounty on beaver-somewhere around 40 bucks. You took in the tip of the tail. Im seeing beaver dams everywhere where im at now in SD. The state trapper is gonna get ran hard in the spring i have a feeling. Farmers arent gonna pay to have them removed here either.

Must be a good thermal to tell the difference is a dog is feral or not.

Those guys braggin about that are about to get thermals outlawed where you live. I doubt 2 am deer and geese are legal there. Seems the mindset of the few thermal guys i know here-kill kill kill. Hopefully they make videos set to acdc of them shooting deer with their magic scopes.