Missouri Fur Trapping Plays Important Role in Community and Conservation

Colt Comer is one of the youngest people in sight.

As older folks grab a cup of coffee or chow down on a plate of biscuits and gravy, the six-year-old is busy brushing beaver pelts, prepping them to sell at the annual Missouri Fur Auction.

He’s been trapping for a little more than a year alongside his dad, Jared Comer. They started trapping when one of their elderly neighbors in Troy in northern Missouri approached them.

“He's in his upper 80s, and he wanted to pass on the heritage and how to do it,” Comer said. “We started helping him and it's led into us doing it ourselves.”

Trapping has a long history in Missouri. Native Americans and early settlers in the state helped to make Missouri the hub of the western fur trade for many years, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.

But there’s been a decline as anti-fur activism has grown and international trade tariffs with Russia and China have impacted the market.

“It's nice to keep the heritage alive and to learn the trade,” Comer said. “I mean, they've been doing this stuff for hundreds of years. So, to be able to pass this down to my kids means everything to me.”

More than a hundred people gathered for a recent auction at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in mid-Missouri. Fur trappers from all corners of the state brought their wares from last year’s trapping season. This included the pelts and glands of raccoons, otters, beavers and bobcats.

Most of the auction attendees were members of the Missouri Fur Trappers Association, a group of trappers that has a code of ethics and hosts the auction each year.

The association’s current president Charles Samuels has been a member for 37 years and began trapping as a young kid.

“Every country kid did it to make a couple extra bucks,” he said.

The organization also has a big focus on education. They teach beginner classes and help folks who are just getting into trapping with the goal of passing the skills to a new generation.

“We can't continue as a sport if we don't educate the new kids coming into the sport on how to do it properly – how to use their equipment right and the ethics that go along with it,” Samuels said.

The Missouri Trappers Code of Ethics includes best practices like avoiding over-harvesting, using humane traps and dispatching — or killing —animals quickly and painlessly, and utilizing as much of the animal as possible.

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Photo Credit: istock-heebyj