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As of March 15, another trapping season closed on the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. Few of the 3.5 million visitors to the refuge annually know such an activity takes place. But, for a few, trapping season is what they live for each year.

Trapping of furbearers has gone on since human occupancy of the Upper Mississippi River Valley. Many of the towns along the Mississippi can trace their roots to a time when fur was the commodity that drove their commerce.

Nowadays, trapping and trappers often find themselves a scorned group. Anti-trapping movements often portray the activity as cruel and barbaric. Managers on the refuge also struggle with trapping activities, but for other reasons. Unlike other consummative sporting activities like hunting or fishing, trapping mirrors a commercial activity that generates money for its participants. Whether for sport or commerce, trapping is an activity rich in tradition. It requires participants to know and understand their quarry at a level that is reached in few other consummative sports.

Today’s furbearers on the refuge are the same creatures that lured earlier trappers to the river many centuries ago. The main focus of trappers at that time was beaver, driven by the huge demand for hats and garments. Today, muskrats are the main quarry of trappers on the Mississippi River, followed by raccoon, beaver, and mink. Fox, otter, opossums, and coyotes are also captured.

Trapping on the refuge has been a highly regulated activity ever since the refuge’s establishment in 1924. Starting in 1940, trappers have been required to purchase a trapping permit, and trap tags limiting the number of traps they can use on the refuge. Trappers must also return a Fur Catch Report that details their catch and effort.

Within the McGregor District’s 100 miles (Dubuque, Iowa, to Genoa, Wis.), 77 trappers purchased permits to trap last season. During the 2003 season, the latest season for which figures are available, 268 permits were issued in the entire refuge (260 miles from Wabasha, Minn., to Rock Island, Ill.). However, only 225 trappers actually trapped during that season.

The number of trappers on the refuge is often linked to the going muskrat fur price. The refuge issued the fewest trap permits (246) in 1942, when muskrat prices were at $1.62 each. The greatest number of permits (2,137) was issued in 1980, when muskrat fur fetched $6.50 apiece.

In 2003, the 77 trappers on the McGregor District reported that they caught 9,197 muskrats (3,786 in Pool 9), 533 raccoons, 497 beaver, 112 mink, and one fox.

Refuge-wide, the average number of muskrat traps set per trapper, per night, was 31. Trappers reported an average of 24 days afield. The reported success rate was 0.28 muskrats caught per night for each trap; on average, for a line of 31 traps, eight muskrats caught per night.

The two most common misnomers about trapping that we hear at the refuge are; “we need to trap muskrats to prevent eatouts or eating themselves out of house and home in a marsh.” Research, however, indicates muskrats will reduce vegetation by as much as 70 percent within a ten-foot radius of a lodge, but even in the most populated muskrat marshes they rarely affect more than three percent of the vegetation.

The second has to do with the statement that “we need to stop trapping muskrats to save the population.” Allowing trapping on the refuge is based on the premise that there is a surplus of animals each year.

Trapping can significantly affect populations in small areas, but usually the law of diminishing returns intervenes. Trappers move from areas that do not produce good trapping results, to areas that do, leaving a sufficient number of animals. Refuge regulations also require that traps be placed a minimum of three feet from muskrat lodges, and do not permit multiple catch traps in order to tip the scale in favor of a continuing muskrat population.

The most important factor affecting muskrats, and most other refuge wildlife, is habitat conditions. And, one of the important factors influencing river habitat conditions is the water level fluctuations or the lack there of and, its influence on the distribution and abundance of vegetation. Certainly, water levels get higher than “normal,” but current operation of the locks and dams rarely produce low water conditions required to rejuvenate vegetation used by many aquatic animals.

Trapping methodology has changed a lot, from the use of leg-hold traps only, to today’s conibear traps. Some states now require new trappers to take a trapping course that includes humane trapping methods and trapping ethics as part of the curriculum. The trappers of today have a real challenge, not only do they need to insure that they treat their quarry in the most humane way possible, but also that they trap responsibly, because the future of trapping depends on it.

For information on the Refuge Trapping Program or other refuge activities you may reach us at

The Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge,

P.O. Box 460,

McGregor, Iowa 52157,

563-873-3423.