Mild weather pushing back trapping season

“The open water and no snow gives the trappers more time to clear their trails and put up their baits after the bears have gone to sleep. The cold weather will come eventually and the fur will start priming.”

Environment and Climate Change Canada is forecasting warmer than usual temperatures for the month of November. For instance, the daytime temperature will remain above 0 C for the next week. It is expected to hit 7 C on Sunday.

McKenzie blames the difference on El Niño, a climate pattern that brings unusually warm weather every two to seven years.

“It’s what the beavers predicted,” he explained.

“I have been beaver hunting the last couple of weeks and the beavers are starting to fix up their lodges and cover them right up for the cold winter. I was wondering why it was taking so long, but it is the weather that’s warm, the El Niño.”

While the price of fur is currently high, McKenzie doesn’t trap for the money. He teaches humane trapping methods and practices like how to skin an animal, stretch it, and prepare it for being sent to the fur auction in Toronto.

“A lot of people don’t start trapping until December because of the primness of the pelts. It’s going to take a little longer to prime all the furs, but it is cooling off enough that some of the pelts are prime,” McKenzie said.

Stanley Mission Elder Adam Charles has been eager to begin trapping, but the warm weather has been holding him back. He traps near Pendleton Lake and believes there will more years ahead with a later start.

“We usually get out there by now, but it doesn’t look like it, it’s all open water and Pendleton Lake is a deep lake,” Charles said.

“It doesn’t freeze until Nov. 20 and we can’t get on until Nov. 30, but that was about 10 years ago. It makes a lot of difference.”

Charles noted since the 1970s, winters have been gradually getting warmer and starting later. He added the snow is also different as well.

“It used to snow in September and some of the smaller lakes would be frozen about an inch and then they would thaw out again. We haven’t had that for a long time,” Charles remarked.

“Everything is changing. Time changes everything. It’s global warming. We destroyed the earth ourselves by industry. I call it self-destruction. That’s what it is in my mind anyway.”

derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

by Derek Cornet

Mild weather pushing back trapping season

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