The RSM Trapping Club is back in action....

The Phoenix has risen... :)

Yesterday we finally broke the drought and assembled the troops for a short but productive outing.

Our first order of business was to get a bait pile out down near the old air strip, as there were numerous fox sightings down there as of late and, best of all, reports of a Cross fox using the area. We grabbed our new gear, which included a dozen snares, some call lure, and the necessary tools/wire from the boxes, and away we went.

Just between the "new" airstrip and the "old" airstrip, I found exactly what I was looking for. A rectangular stand of willows with a very convincing set of criss-crossing trails heading to and from one outside edge. Bingo.

We all went in on the same trail and went to work...














After the first bait station was set, we went for a short drive upriver to Fish Camp and set another...









Great care was taken to not disturb the area and leave no sign in the snow - even tree-crawling was employed...:)


When I re-explained about outstanding objects I mentioned that "...they are, to a fox, something they just can't resist checking out - kind of like when your friend plays "made you look!" they'll say something they think you can't resist to try and fool you."

I pointed out a nearby stump that had various trails meeting at it and illustrated its status as an outstanding object/pee post, and the girls responded with this message in the snow, and I just had to take a picture: (stump and tracks are upper-center...)


In the end, we finished up a good set at the second site, and now we just have to wait and see what happens....

The year of the snowmachine ride....

It's been a while since the last post so I figured I'd better get something typed up. As stated in the title however, the trapping season of '11-'12 has amounted to just about that - the year of the snowmachine ride. As in, "I shouldn't have bothered bringing all the traps, snares, and bait along, cause all I did was take a ride..."

From the start, the outings I have attempted to make productive have been waylaid by weather, other people's traps, others' tampering with sets, and not having enough time to do things right...

In some cases, all of the above conspired on the SAME trip...

So, long story made shorter - that is what I have termed this season. Looks like I will be sticking close by and catching a few fox for the remainder of the season, with the exception of the Kako trip planned for next weekend.

Speaking of which, John and Forde and I made a nice long trip, a.k.a. another snowmachine ride :) to Kako, after which we wrapped around the back side and met back up with the Marshall trail. Thought I'd post some pics, even though it wasn't the clearest day......

A couple of the views:




A look at the terrain from a little closer:


Fode, after falling into the Punji-stick-pit-of-death trap that the ptarmigan he was chasing led him into:


A few shots of the crew:







And lastly, a few more shots of off-trail scenery:







Though it was about as productive as the rest of the season has been from a trapping perspective, it was still a good trip.

In other news, the Trapping Club supplies we were able to get through the YKHC grant have arrived, and there will be pics this week of the kids examining their new gear, and more pics from this coming weekend of us putting the goods to use...

Stay Tuned...

Throwing Water at 40 below zero

With the temperatures not getting any warmer than -30 for about a week now, it has been a frustrating Christmas break as far as trapping is concerned. Sarah and I have had to find other ways to entertain ourselves. One of those goofy things cabin fever can incite in you was to go outside and "throw water" in the freezing (understatement) weather. As it can be hard to explain what water does at these temps, I figured I'd take some videos/pics and post 'em. Again - gotta find something to do when stuck indoors. :)

On this particular day, the temp was recorded at the airstrip here in Russian Mission as -45, ambient. Wind chill was -62 or some such. When it gets THAT cold, a few degrees here or there doesn't matter much. Not to your skin it doesn't.

Anyways, Sarah got two cups of water ready (heated) and put food coloring in one of them. I captured the tossing on video, and then took some still images out of the clips. At first there is a bunch of steam and then as the water (...that just seconds before was almost boiling, mind you) turns almost instantly to ice crystals you can see the ice chunks' little vapor trails as they plummet to the snow. The actual amount of water that hits the snow as ice is almost nothing compared to what's in the cup at the toss, because so much is lost as vapor, and so the water almost disappears in the process. All this is accompanied by a loud hissing noise, and some crackling as the water undergoes a 250-degree temperature change in an instant. Here are the still images in sequence:

Are they extinct yet?.....

Was just browsing around on one of my old yahoo contributor articles submitted last year in the wake of the wolves' de-listing (removal from endangered species list - as if they should have been on it in the first place ) down in the lower 48, and was intrigued by a positive reader comment.

Point being - Now that the hunting and trapping seasons have been established and wolves are being harvested again.......... are they extinct yet? Umm, no. Not even close, despite the world wide web's explosive reaction to the fact that they were now legally harvestable. Just thought I'd post my article here on the blog, as a celebration of the successful-for-all-parties-involved wolf hunting and trapping now going on. (as it should be...) My original article can also still be found on the yahoo contributing writer network - just click here.

Here is my argument, though I shall spare my bibliography here: :)

Wolves' Delisting: What You May Not Know

With all the emotional debate raging on about the 'covert' delisting of the gray wolf in the lower 48, I find it worthy to call to attention some undisguised facts regarding this adept predator and the current management practices surrounding it that are taking place in North America. Though I would not venture to vindicate the process used by legislators to enact this ruling, there are some points that should be assessed without allowing government decisions to cloud the truth.

The gray wolf has never been eradicated from any state due to public hunting seasons alone. A government eradication program, spurred on and supplemented by state-offered bounties, still took the better part of a century to eradicate the wolves from each of several states in the lower 48. This cannot be categorized as a level of harvest reached with public hunting. (www.wolf.org, 2009)

The claim that public hunting can or will eradicate the wolf can thus be labeled as inflammatory and unfounded at best. Let's look at Alaska, for example. In over a century of pursuit, through public hunting and trapping seasons and government sponsored hunting programs (including the oft-contested aerial harvest), what has happened to the wolf? Alaska now boasts the highest population of wolves anywhere in the United States. That hardly sounds like eradication. What better example of harvest's effectiveness than the state with the most aggressive programs - especially when the wolves in that state are the most successful on the continent? (www.wolf.org, 2009) The fact is that in this hunting, trapping, management hotspot of the wolf's world, wolves have never in recorded history been threatened or endangered. (www.adfg.alaska.gov, 2011) Hard to argue with.

The argument that reducing wolf numbers to such levels that genetic problems and inbreeding will result in the demise of the species is unfounded. After all, let's not forget that today's present populations in the lower 48 arose from very low numbers of reintroduced individuals in the states the programs affected. Examples? In 1995, 15 wolves from Canada were reintroduced into central Idaho. 14 individuals were released into the Yellowstone area. Subsequent releases? 20 more were released into the Idaho, and 17 more into the Yellowstone re-introduction areas. (NCSEonline.org, 1997) Not a breeding pool of epic proportions, in either case. Consider also that not every member of a pack will breed, and your gene pool gets even smaller - as does also the required number of individuals necessary for perpetuation of the species. Another often heard claim is that there is no reason to kill a wolf. Any animal with fur that exists at harvestable, sustainable populations is a renewable resource. To then let surplus individuals of that species die un-utilized cannot be considered anything but a waste of a renewable resource. The fur of a wolf will provide more to a human being, in warmth, for far more years, than the brief, minimal return it will provide in nutrients to the environment. The carcass of a wolf harvested for fur is not lost to the ecosystem.

And it does not stop there. Keeping wolf populations in check allows members of those populations to better thrive, just as true as the claim that allowing wolves to keep prey animals in check benefits them. Same reasoning, - same need for control. Disease, suffering, and starvation are all large parts of unbalanced eco-systems. Management brings ecosystems into balance faster than nature, stopping negative conditions before they occur. Healthy populations are not those allowed to run amok, but rather those kept in check. Biology and historical data alone can determine a balance that is productive for all concerned. To claim that "we do not need to manage wolves" is to say two things, not one; that is, we need not either hunt them nor do we need to declare them endangered. We need to look at the evidence provided us and make up our minds.

The Catches Continue!

With the addition of some snares set across the river, we have now branched out a bit on species and added to the 'fur shed'!

The first new animal collected was an otter, caught in a snare set on a beaver feed pile. It was a great opportunistic catch, made possible by the assistance of a trapping club student and parent, and the snares we built early on. The kids seemed excited about the catch, and we had a fun day in science class dissecting and analyzing the beast. We found some partially digested blackfish in the stomach contents, which was a great success - seeing as none of our other stomach content analyses were productive thus far.









We had a good view of the four chambered heart as well - and we were able to observe the frozen, coagulated blood left in the chambers:


Also, we ended up catching another Red in the snare bait pile which had been robbed of its bait. Just goes to show the benefit of using naturally occurring trails, even when incorporating them into a bait pile. That particular bait had been stolen roughly a week prior to this catch. This is one of the students in the trapping club, with Bridger and Ada investigating the frozen bounty:

Trapping Club Meeting #2...

First I would like to start off with events from the school day, before we get to the evening. We skinned the fox in the last post...


...and then we went through a comprehensive dissection, including stomach content analysis. Also discussed were many skeletal and anatomical features common to predators. The biggest hits seemed to be the lenses of the eyes and exploring just how long the intestines really are in relation to the fox itself:


Now, on to the evening...

Well, this week's RSM Trapping Club meeting was a bigger success than last week's - I was hoping for a better turnout now that the flurry of activities is temporarily over, and it definitely was. All told, we had eleven kids show up - after everyone ran home for gloves and hats and snow pants and snow boots and what not (after all, it WAS -23 outside...)

We started by everyone making a few S-bend wires for hanging snares, and before long with all of us working together we had about 2 dozen. I grabbed a pair of rotted, foul duck carcasses from this fall along with two footholds and some snares and away we went. Though most of us walked, many only went far enough to get their snowmachines and then joined the rest of us at the dump, which was our first stop.




We all made it safely in the end:


Oh, and once we got to the dump there was a "Hairy Man" sighting: :)


First up we chose a spot in a low pocket of willows off the dump road where lots of sign already was. Careful to all use the same trail on the way in, we stomped down a bait station circle and got two snares hung in already-used-trails.








We applied the stank-nasty duck carcass-minus-breasts for scent and visual appeal - and OH BOY did it have some scent!!! As Basil found out... :) We also applied some of Asa Lenon's lure to a post-stick to sweeten the pot a bit.




After that, the fence building began.




There were a few more freshly broken tops showing than I would normally use, but in the end, it looked pretty darn good. As I have said before and I will say many times again - the 'dumb' ones look the same on the stretchers as the 'smart' ones.


A good time seemed to be had by all, though some were more bystander than participant this go-round...


While we were working on the first bait-station, two of the students set off around the dump on their own, and placed two other snares in trails. They also came back with a moose backbone! (on back of the snowmachine...)


After about half the students headed for home due to the cold, (did I mention it was -23 outside?...) we took off for the far reaches of the lake and made a set with the two footholds and the newly-acquired backbone. The set was created in a natural cubby and was a modified version of my "step-up" set I experimented with in Pilot Station. This isn't the best picture, but it was getting dark and the camera didn't adjust well.... :)


We'll see how it goes...