Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Grey Wolf
You might want to scroll down to June 18 posting by Rem78 a friend of Widow asking for help to transfer the trapline from her husband who passed away. Now the Biologist will be taking over her husbands line with no chance of her saving it for her son or help her to have a few dollars to make ends meet without a husband.
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I know of a transfer that happened in the 1980s where the line holder lost his line to a retired farmer from south of Calgary, McLeod area I believe.
I knew that trapper and he was trapping the line, but had reduced his take because he believed the fur populations was getting too low.
Meanwhile this farmer came along and struck up a friendship with the regional SRD manager. Some say they did a lot of drinking together.
This farmer let it be known that he wanted a registered line, but no one was interested in letting theirs go.
Next thing we hear is that the trapper was accused of not trapping his line properly and the line had been taken away and given to this farmer.
My dad reluctantly helped teach that farmer a bit about trapping. In the process we learned that said farmer had never trapped anything before moving to this area. But he had a dream and more money then most of us.
He became the butt of many jokes, and never really learned to trap, although he did trap some till the month he died.
Point is, this has been happening for a long time. It was never common so far as I know. Most conservation officers are fair and reasonable people in my experience and I don't expect that to change any time soon.
But I will grant you this, it is clear to me that times are changing. It could well be that you all have good reason to worry, and I could be right that what you see is not what will bring about an end to trapping.
It could be that habitat loss and development is a bigger threat.
Before most of you were born I was trapping and back then we faced similar threats. Our big concern was government regulations that limited what we could do and that added cost and time to our work.
We saw and heard the fuss made by the hippies of the day, about how cruel we were to animals and how trapping was a blood sport.
We knew they were living in a fantasy world, that trapping was nothing like they claimed it was. So we ignored them believing that people would see through their lies.
We were wrong. They were the bigger threat.
If you want to tilt at windmills, be my guest. Meanwhile I shall prey that I am wrong, for your sake.