Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper / Autobiography, experiences and observations of Eldred Nathaniel Woodcock during his fifty years of hunting and trapping.

by E. N. Woodcock

This sympathetic doctor makes no mention of the farmer who has a number of sheep killed by bears, which is almost an every day occurrence during the summer season in any section where bear frequent.

Now, Brother Trappers, it is not the great sympathy that these gentlemen club men have for the bear. No, not in the least. What these gentlemen want is to drive the lowly bear trapper out of business, so that those very sympathetic gentlemen may more easily kill a bear without losing too much of their precious sweat, and not be compelled to get too far from camp and the champagne bottle.

Now, Brother Bear Trappers, my object in writing these few lines is to ask you and each of you to write your respective representative at once, advising him that you are opposed to any law to abolish the trapping of the bear.

I believe that I was the first to advocate some remedy against the wasteful slaughter of the fur bearing animals through the medium of our favorite magazine, the Hunter-Trader-Trapper. I urged that the remedy was with the large raw fur dealers by refusing to accept skins that were not in a reasonably prime condition. Since my writing, other more capable writers have taken up the matter and have advocated a remedy from the same standpoint.

Now by close observation I have become satisfied that there is no use of looking further in that direction for a remedy of this wasteful slaughter of the fur bearing animals. The city fur dealers receive the goods which consist of all manner of skins and all grades from good to poor and worthless. In most cases the dealer received the goods from local dealers who have gathered the furs up from among the trappers, paying such prices as he thought would leave a fair profit on the whole bunch. In most cases paying more for the poorer grade than it was really worth, while paying far less than the prime skins were worth.

WOODCOCK ON THE TRAP LINE 1912.

Now the dealer was hardly to be blamed for this sort of transaction, for it was the only way that he could make a deal with the trapper. The city dealer is in the same fix as the local dealer. He quotes furs from number one down to number four and trash, making up on the better grades what he may have lost on the poorer. Thus you see there is no one out anything except the trapper, who will insist on trapping too early in the season, as well as too late in the spring of the year.

Now we will say to the brother trappers of Pennsylvania and other states as well, that we are at the parting of the ways, allowing us to use the term. We must do something desperate if we wish to save the fur bearers from becoming extinct and save the trappers' pleasure and what profit he may derive from the business.