A little history on beaver trapping in WA

[Humptulips]

If you have been around trappers in WA going back a way you probably have heard guys talk about being a State Trapper. One conjures up pictures of a grizzled old wolfer out protecting livestock or some such thing. Far from the truth as most of these guys were trapping beaver.
You see after WWII the beaver population had maxed out in large areas of WA. The Game Department was getting a lot of flak about beaver damage and beaver prices were high. Opportunities for trappers to cash in but the Game Department had other ideas. They hired these State Trappers and gave them exclusive areas to trap beaver, paying them a flat rate for their beaver. The Game Department than sold the beaver and pocketed the difference. This started in the era of $1 an inch beaver so the finished beaver was worth $50+ average and the trapper received from personal accounts I listened too, $7. Most trappers were out of luck and couldn't take advantage of this opportunity.
By the 60s the price of beaver had dropped to where the State wasn't showing a big profit off trappers, so they opened beaver up to everyone and did away with the State beaver trappers. (I think that was 62.)
Beaver tags had to be bought and on your person for every beaver in possession. They were $1 and you had to buy them in advance. Woe unto the trapper that was caught on the line with an untagged beaver. They raised the price to $2 about the time I graduated from school and done away with them after a couple years of the $2 tags.

[Loup Loup]

Was just reminiscing about this the other day with another “old timer”.
The beaver tag was a way for the State to keep some beaver money flowing into the state coffers, even though they got out of having a corner on the market whin prices dropped.Part of most game wardens duties in those State owned beaver days was trapping beaver and putting up beaver and otter pelts for sale.
I came in when the tags went to $2. As Humptulips said you had to buy the tag before you caught the beaver. A small beaver pelt only brought $1. So I learned to try to set my trap deeper to hopefully not catch a small one.

[boneaddict]

Thank you for sharing that

[LDennis24]

Yeah thank you for the info! I mentioned beavers in the Trappers beware thread because it's a perfect example of how if we don't manage their population through trapping then you would see all sorts of issues with beavers damming up drainage ditches used to control flooding and backyard streams and culverts being dammed up. I've seen many beaver dams built on a culvert.

[Elkaholic daWg]

Already see that here

[timberfaller]

They were notorious for damming up open irrigation ditches and head gates too!!   About one month every fall on the Big Valley, I was in "pest control"!!   Got $50 for every one I got, kept me in gun monies!!

[KFhunter]

Imagine today's "game wardens" trapping and putting up beaver as a condition of employment?

[Trapper John]

If you have been around trappers in WA going back a way you probably have heard guys talk about being a State Trapper. One conjures up pictures of a grizzled old wolfer out protecting livestock or some such thing. Far from the truth as most of these guys were trapping beaver.
You see after WWII the beaver population had maxed out in large areas of WA. The Game Department was getting a lot of flak about beaver damage and beaver prices were high. Opportunities for trappers to cash in but the Game Department had other ideas. They hired these State Trappers and gave them exclusive areas to trap beaver, paying them a flat rate for their beaver. The Game Department than sold the beaver and pocketed the difference. This started in the era of $1 an inch beaver so the finished beaver was worth $50+ average and the trapper received from personal accounts I listened too, $7. Most trappers were out of luck and couldn't take advantage of this opportunity.
By the 60s the price of beaver had dropped to where the State wasn't showing a big profit off trappers, so they opened beaver up to everyone and did away with the State beaver trappers. (I think that was 62.)
Beaver tags had to be bought and on your person for every beaver in possession. They were $1 and you had to buy them in advance. Woe unto the trapper that was caught on the line with an untagged beaver. They raised the price to $2 about the time I graduated from school and done away with them after a couple years of the $2 tags.

   "1963" ..........   so they opened beaver up to everyone and did away with the State beaver trappers. (I think that was 62.)

I remember quit a few of those state trappers.  Jack Say was one of them from Seattle.  Real nice guy and member of WSTA.  He was a meat cutter and use to bring his used knives to our rendezvous and sell them for a $1.00.
He use to tell me that he use to trap beaver out of the culvert ditches that flooded road including I-5.

The "Game Department" use to have what they called "Control Officers" (which were and are game agents), those were the guys that trapped nuisance beaver and raccoons in peoples backyards.  That program came to an end in 1985-86.  That is when the department contacted me and a few other guys and ask us if we wanted to do the job of trapping nuisance wildlife year round.  That is when the program stated and it was called "Contract Trappers".  The Game department was than changed to the Washington Wildlife Department.  A few years later it was call "Nuisance Wildlife Control Operators.  And the department became what it is today known as Department of Fish & Wildlife - WDFW.    Years later it became just plain "Wildlife Control Operators" or as you call yourself "WCO's" now.

Yep, I was one of those first guys on the program.
Just a little history on the whole "Trapping Problem" that started back in the 1960's.
JC   

[KFhunter]

Loved the history lessons 

[Loup Loup]

Make no mistake, what Humptulips brought up and what I spoke to was not nuisance wildlife control. But, the State excluding the public from a resource, so they, the State had exclusive access to that resource. Beaver pelts. The State employees and contractors trapped for fur. The fur was then sold to generate revenue for the State coffers. It was not until the price crashed and beaver complaints increased that the public was allowed to once again harvest beaver. While taxed by having to buy the state beaver tags.

[hunter399]

It kinda cool to hear some history from beaver trapping.
From some guys that lived it.
The state trying to profit off the resources is not a huge surprise.
Learn something everyday.👍

[LDennis24]

Now see I have never trapped or been actively involved in trapping in any way. Yet I can see the writing on the wall just being observant of what beavers do in the areas I frequent and wondering what can be done about it. And they wanna put a complete stop to trapping. 

[Loup Loup]

You Ldennis get the point of this reminisce.

[AL WORRELLS KID]

Here's a picture of the Fur Grader's from the Seattle Fur Exchange at Southcenter in Tukwila, WA taken back in the 70's (a Fur Auction House used by the State.) I'm the one in  the Visor.
 We saw a lot of piles of Washington State Game Department Beaver Pelts come through our doors and even some Sea Otter Pelts when NOAA was "experimenting" on the populations in the 80's. 

[Humptulips]

I saw a rack of sea otter at SFE on my first trip to SFE circa about 1980. Incredible pelts, Monstrous things as I remember they were like 6 feet long not including the tail. They have a very short tail. Every kind of fur imaginable in the grading room. I believe the guy said they had $7,000,000 on the grading room floor.