Idaho is the first state outside of Alaska to regulate a trapping season for wolves. It after the animal was removed from the Endangered Species List this spring. Trappers who are hoping to snare a gray wolf are required to take a mandatory class. Emily Schwing joined the class to find out what it takes to trap a wolf.
If anyone can tell you how challenging it is to trap a wolf, it’s Rick Williamson.
Williamson is a carnivore biologist with Idaho’s Department of Fish and Game. He recently retired from his position as a wolf management specialist with the federal government . On this day, he’s teaching a class of about 25 people how to set a foothold trap.
Williamson has spent over 30 years working with wolves in Idaho, and for about a decade, his 15-year-old grandson, Brett Swain has tagged along.
“It’s awesome,” he says. “We’ve had the most memorable times…”
“Thousands of miles together,” chimes in Brett.
“Yeah we’ve been a long, long way together. We were talking on the way down here about the time just a year ago wasn’t it, when we were in the little tent in the middle of the night and the rain flap was off and we could see the moon was coming up and we could see the big lodgepoles and the wolves started howling about 200 yards from our tent and those kinds of times you just can’t forget,” says Williamson.
But both men are amongst only a few who have ever tracked and trapped Idaho’s elusive wolves.
Williamson says his grandson has had an experience most men don’t .
“Most kids his age, most guys don’t ever have that experience you know and you know he’s gotten to be pretty efficient, he can get the coffee done pretty early in the morning ,” he jokes.
Patrick Carney is attending the class so he can purchase his trapping tags. He also traps with his seven year old grandson.
“Last year me and my buddy Bill took him and he caught an otter. This year, he’s already got his trapping license and about a month ago he told me, he said the fur sale’s coming up in January and since I’m a full time trapper now, it’s time we need to get going.”
Carney is the President of the Idaho Trapper’s Association. He’s never trapped a wolf, but he agrees when Williamson calls trapping a dying art.
“I think that would be one of the largest things I’ve done is be able to bring the younger trappers on board and teach ‘em what to do,” says Williamson. ” Trapping is an art and there’s a lot of people that don’t agree with it and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to set down with those folks, a lot of ‘em, and show ‘em what we’re doing and respect their opinions and they respect mine.”
In the early 1800′s, an expedition along the Snake River brought fur trappers to Southern Idaho. And Patrick Carney says it’s been part of Idaho’s culture ever since.
“People were trapping in this state before it was a state, trapping’s what opened up the west and most of this country. Yeah it’s definitely part of Idaho,” says Carney.
But the thrill of the hunt and a thriving fur market in the Victorian era didn’t always motivate trappers. In 1915, Congress appropriated 125-thousand dollars – what today amounts to nearly three million dollars – to remove predators, including wolves, from public lands. Wolves were trapped, shot and poisoned to deal with livestock predation. The Department of Fish and Game believes the last wolf was killed in the Gem state in the 1930’s.
During the class, Williamson uses a drill to dig a bait hole about a foot and a half away from the trap he’s just set. He wants to make it look as though an animal came through and dug up a tasty morsel. If you’re going to catch a wolf, he says, you have to think like a wolf.
“I think wolves are a prolific animal,” he says. “They’re sensitive to a lot of people, but just the mystic of being out with wolves in general and you know the look in their eye and you know I have a lot of respect for wolves, I don’t hate wolves. They are kind of a cool animal.”
He sets the trap and buries it. Then he sticks two golf ball sized stones on either side and he lays three larger rocks around the hole he’s just dug.
He’s trying to get the wolf to step right between the stones. The odds of convincing a wolf to set it’s paw down right on top of the buried 3-inch metal pan are low. It’s like trying to drop a grapefruit into a teacup that’s resting somewhere, within a management unit that is hundreds-of-thousands of acres in size.
It’s estimated Idaho is home to more than 1000 wolves today. Roughly the same number of trappers come to Idaho each year. Among them, fewer than 100 wolf trapping tags have sold. But close to 300 people have taken Fish and Game’s mandatory class.
Patrick Carney says the Trapper’s Association pushed for the classes, because it’s been nearly eight decades since anyone other than federal wildlife officials has trapped a wolf.
“I’m not worried about the trappers out there,” he says “but new people that are – just want to catch a wolf and they don’t understand trapping and the concepts and the basics of it and using the wrong equipment and that kind of stuff could have caused us problems and we didn’t want to be in the spotlight in a negative way. We know this wolf issue is a very polarizing issue.”
Because of the controversy involving wolf reintroduction and hunting and trapping, Rick Williamson says he feels a lot more pressure to perform well in this, Idaho’s first ever official wolf trapping season.
“I think it’s a more important task to help educate the people that want to be trappers and teach them the importance of ethics and responsibility and you know, we are under a great magnifying glass,” says Williamson.
Fish and Game is required to report trapped and hunted wolf numbers to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Since this summer, conservation groups have been trying to halt hunting and trapping in Idaho and Montana. They’ve filed an injunction that’s pending in the 9thCircuit Court of Appeals.