Ohio’s annual trapping season for fur-bearing animals started Tuesday, but some say the tradition has been fundamentally changed by development.
“You think about the old adage of driving down the road with your grandpa, and he says, ‘Back in my day this was all cornfields.’ Well, it's true,” said Brett Beatty, a West Chester-area native and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ wildlife management supervisor for Southwest Ohio. “I tell my kids, ‘Back in my day this was all cornfields.’”
From 2000-2023, more than 92% of agricultural land lost in Butler County was due to development, according to The Ohio State University. In Warren County, the figure is closer to 94%. Both counties rank among the top five in Ohio for the percentage of land lost to development.
Beatty says that’s reduced access to the fur-bearing animals that may be trapped in Ohio — including raccoons, foxes, opossums, skunks, weasels and muskrats — because there are heavy restrictions on the practice in populated areas.
Still, many of those animals “live well in that urban-rural confluence,” he added.
Dave Linkhart, a spokesperson for the Ohio State Trappers Association, said many people have transitioned from seasonal trapping to nuisance trapping — a year-round, state-regulated practice designed to help property owners with bothersome animals.
“It's a lot more paperwork and more dealing with people than it is animals, because [in] every one of those situations you've got a customer. So as far as spending time out in nature, not so much,” Linkhart, who has been trapping for 65 years, said. “But for some, they've found out that's a pretty good revenue stream.”
Even though he isn’t a nuisance trapper, Linkhart said, nowadays, he and others spend most of the regular season helping farmers on their private land, rather than using public land.
“A farmer may call the trapper they know and say, ‘Hey, I've had a lot of raccoon damage in my cornfield,’” Linkhart said. “Try raising sweet corn in Ohio. You better have an electric fence or a very good trapper.”
Still, the number of fur taker permits — the certification required to hunt or trap animals such as raccoons — sold in Ohio has declined steadily in recent years.
That’s disappointing for Linkhart. He and Beatty both point out the importance of trapping to Ohio’s history: one of the state’s first libraries was established with funds from the sale of raccoon skins.
In addition to development, Linkhart and Beatty both said there are other factors contributing to the change, such as declines in the global market for fur.
“It used to be [that] our primary buyer of raccoon was Russia and Ukraine, but since the war, the price of that item has gone way down,” Linkhart said, adding most of Ohio’s furs will be auctioned to Canadians or exported overseas.
Plus, Beatty added, trapping is heavily regulated: to legally practice the sport, one must complete classes that cover standards, safety and rules about the type of traps that may be used.
“Trapping, in and of itself, tends to be a very, very labor intensive, difficult practice,” Beatty said, adding Ohio law mandates traps must be checked at least once a day. “You can't just set some on Sunday and come back next weekend and see what you got.”
At least one young Butler County trapper wants more people his age to pick up the practice.
“So many people used to do [it], and that's just kind of disappeared,” said 20-year-old Bryson Hamilton, who added he knows only one other trapper his age in the area. “I think that we should bring it back for the younger generation and really start educating them on it.”
Like Linkhart, Hamilton works for farmers, but he said trapping also helps stop raccoons and possums from damaging turkey, bird and rabbit populations.
“I like seeing those animals out there, and if I can do something to help them thrive, I'd love to,” Hamilton said.
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