Free: Contests & Raffles.
I started trapping when I was 13 and stopped for quite a while until probably 15 years ago. I was duck hunting and was sitting by a farm ditch in stanwood that has salmon fry in it. I watched 3 otters eat an unbelievable amount of salmon fry for over a half hour. I got to thinking if they are in here doing that day after day with no predators to kill them they must put a massive dent in the salmon population. There are so many otters in my area it’s crazy. So I started trapping again to specifically target otters. The first couple I caught chewed holes through my cage wire while underwater and escaped, changed the trap wire size and began catching.I don’t know what kind of quantities other people catch on here and catch in a year but it doesn’t seem like I hardly make a dent in the population. No matter where I trap I catch them even if targeting only beavers.I’m trapping a lady’s side yard right now which has a bad beaver problem, I approached it as I’m there to catch beaver for her. This on the edge of town so pretty populated,I have caught 5 beaver and 4 otters .there is still one more beaver that I’m trying to catch. This is in a 40 yd distance of creek. When looking at this place I never would have thought I’d catch 4 otters there. Maybe 1.My point In saying all this is I wonder how many salmon fry an otter consumes in a year. I just read this and I’ll put a snap shot up but a study says 2 adults and 2 juvenile otters in 6 weeks ate 3300 salmon fry! Image how much they eat in a year!I’d be interested to know how many guys target otters and is it just my area that has piles of them or is it that way all over Western Washington? Seems like if we as trappers went after them in high population areas it would possibly help the salmon fry a little.
Quote from: Born2late on March 10, 2024, 06:09:08 PMI started trapping when I was 13 and stopped for quite a while until probably 15 years ago. I was duck hunting and was sitting by a farm ditch in stanwood that has salmon fry in it. I watched 3 otters eat an unbelievable amount of salmon fry for over a half hour. I got to thinking if they are in here doing that day after day with no predators to kill them they must put a massive dent in the salmon population. There are so many otters in my area it’s crazy. So I started trapping again to specifically target otters. The first couple I caught chewed holes through my cage wire while underwater and escaped, changed the trap wire size and began catching.I don’t know what kind of quantities other people catch on here and catch in a year but it doesn’t seem like I hardly make a dent in the population. No matter where I trap I catch them even if targeting only beavers.I’m trapping a lady’s side yard right now which has a bad beaver problem, I approached it as I’m there to catch beaver for her. This on the edge of town so pretty populated,I have caught 5 beaver and 4 otters .there is still one more beaver that I’m trying to catch. This is in a 40 yd distance of creek. When looking at this place I never would have thought I’d catch 4 otters there. Maybe 1.My point In saying all this is I wonder how many salmon fry an otter consumes in a year. I just read this and I’ll put a snap shot up but a study says 2 adults and 2 juvenile otters in 6 weeks ate 3300 salmon fry! Image how much they eat in a year!I’d be interested to know how many guys target otters and is it just my area that has piles of them or is it that way all over Western Washington? Seems like if we as trappers went after them in high population areas it would possibly help the salmon fry a little.3300 in six weeks equals 28,600 a year each!
Ya I’m not far from you and we have a lot of otters , every trickle of water has them you’d think we would get more calls from hatcheries
This is an issue I dealt with while working at and running hatcheries all over this state for 32years, along with Mink and Herons! They are persistent and very difficult to deter by physical barriers alone. I’ve tried everything, including high voltage electric fencing around raceways and ponds, but Otters will simply take the shock just to get at their food source. The only effective way, long term, is trapping. At almost every facility we ended up contracting with a trapper to reduce the population, but they always come back. What we are talking about applies to many species of predator - man made populations. When you look at river systems that have hatcheries on them, you will always find a higher population of Otters, Minks, Herons, and Mergansers. Follow this downstream and you find a higher population of Harbor Seals, Sea Lions, and Commorants. If you follow this logic, you will also find that it applies to the Killer Whale situation. This state has produced hundreds of millions of Salmon ever year for many decades, providing a food source for all predators that then produces a false population. Obviously you can’t just stop the train after it’s left the station, we are in a no win situation, it’s just a shame that the feds and the state would rather protect these predators and allow them to continue to grow, than let sportsman continue to fish. The bottom line is lethal removal of these man made populations is the only viable option for some species......it’s called resource management, something this state knows little about anymore!
