State officers keep an eye on area wildlife trapping

Conservation Police Officers Dewayne Sprinkle and Eric Rorabaugh canvassed the brush along a creek in Lovingston last week, searching for traps to ensure they are set legally.

“We want to make sure everyone’s doing it legally,” Rorabaugh said. “We want to make sure they’re not trespassing

on someone else’s land and we want to make sure they’re doing it right.”

Sprinkle said, “We want to make sure the wildlife is here for future generations.”

A pet dog was caught in a trap while out on a walk with its owner at the end of January, prompting discussion about trapping among some residents in the county.

When checking for traps, Department of Game and Inland Fisheries officers look for a few key things: the traps have tags with the trapper’s identification information, the trapper has permission from the land owner to put the traps out, the traps are being checked every 24 hours, there is no bait on the trap and the traps are the proper size.

The 24-hour law is in place because they don’t want the animal to suffer and they want to ensure other people’s animals aren’t caught in the trap accidentally. Underwater traps should be checked every 72 hours, Sprinkle said.

He said it’s easiest to tell if someone is checking the traps after a snowfall because their footprints will be visible. However, not all trappers will visit their trap to check it. He said some trappers will tie ribbons above the trap and use binoculars to see if there is anything in it.

The department receives several calls about wildlife or pets being caught a year but Sprinkles says that is not common.

The most common complaints the department receives are about trespassing. If an area is posted, then the trapper or hunter needs written permission from the property owner. If an area is unposted, the trapper or hunter needs verbal permission, Sprinkle said.

A property owner does not need to put identification tags on traps on their own property.

There are no restrictions on the number of traps someone can lay out at one time.

Violations are usually class 3 misdemeanors with fines of $30 to $100. One trap could receive up to seven violations. Since Sprinkle and Rorabaugh cover Amherst, Nelson, Appomattox and Bedford counties and the city of Lynchburg, he said the cost of the fine could differ between each jurisdiction.

Officers enforce the laws through various methods, including searching areas for traps and talking to trappers, hunters, and land owners in the area.

“The majority of the people you check are understanding and nice,” Rorabaugh said. “They understand why we’re out there and they appreciate it.”

Trappers are required to have a license if they are at least 16 years old, unless they are trapping on their own property. The cost of a license ranges from $9 for a senior citizen trapping license to a $206 non-resident trapping license. People are strongly encouraged to complete an educational course before trapping or hunting, even if they are exempt from having to have a license.

There are 647 registered trappers in Virginia for the 2012 fiscal year. There were 620 registered trappers the previous year, according to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Officers will wear gloves while checking traps because they are aware of the lengths trappers go through to make them scent proof. Generally they will look for traps that are already sprung and have something in it. The traps Sprinkle typically finds range from five inches to seven and a half inches in size, but there are also smaller traps that can be one to two inches wide.

Traps can be purchased online, in hardware stores and in distribution centers around the state. They range in cost from $5 to $35, depending on the brand and type of trap. Some of the traps now have padded jaws and others don’t close completely on the animals, said Steve Colvin, the president of the Virginia Trappers Association.

Colvin said it could take years to determine the best place to lay traps. He said he’ll look at signs in the environment like tracks or droppings to see where the most travelled paths are for the animals he’s trapping. He said he also talks to land owners to see where they see the animals.

Sometimes knolls in fields or farms are a good place to lay traps for coyotes or foxes, while entranceways in the water are good places to set traps for beavers. The number of traps used will depend on the number of animals expected in the area, he said.

Some of the most popular animals trapped in Virginia are coyotes, muskrats, bobcats, otters and raccoons, Colvin said.

The bag limits, or the amount of a certain type of animal a hunter or trapper can get each day, depend on the type of animal, not on the method of getting it.

There are numerous reasons for trapping.

One is if the animal is a nuisance to the area, such as groundhogs on farms or beavers clogging up waterways with dams. Other reasons are for food or fur.

Colvin has been trapping for most of his life, just like generations in his family before him. He views trapping as a recreational sport that’s part of the country’s rich history. He also views trapping as a way to help manage and protect wildlife by keeping population sizes normal, reducing the risk of disease and animals being hit by cars.

“If we don’t manage wildlife, then Mother Nature will and it might be with rabies or other diseases,” he said.

He added that trapping helps the animals too because it thins out the weaker ones and reduces the competition among them for food and territory.

However, members of Born Free USA disagree. They consider trapping to be cruel and dangerous to all of the animals caught, including those the traps are intended for and those that are accidental.

Born Free is an international effort that was established in England in 1984 to promote wildlife conservation and animal protection. It became established in the United States in 2002.

Adam Roberts, the executive vice president of Born Free USA, said the number of incidents of nontarget animals trapped has recently doubled with over a dozen reported incidents across the country in the past two months.

Based on media reports, called-in cases and other reported instances, Roberts predicted that one in three animals caught in the traps are non-target animals.

“It’s a very cruel sport that’s past its time,” Roberts said. “I think it’s time society considers fur out of fashion and that people stop engaging in such cruelty for a coat, a vest or a hat.”

He said that there was no excuse to use trapping as a form of recreation.

He said there should be tighter regulations, and ideally, steel-jaw traps should be outlawed.

Colvin said, “I respect other people’s opinions. But when trapping’s done correctly I don’t see anything wrong with it.”