Trapping, an outdoors activity commonly associated with the Last Frontier, actually happens farther from home than many people might imagine \u2014 or at least Juneau trails.<\/p>\n
This is what the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Juneau Chapter of the Alaska Trappers Association want to educate the public on, especially dog walkers and other trail users.<\/p>\n
At the \u201cSharing the Trails\u201d presentation happening today from 7-9 p.m. at the Dzantik\u2019I Heeni Middle School library, ADFG and Juneau trappers will educate the public on where trapping is and isn\u2019t allowed, how traps work and what to do if they are encountered.<\/p>\n
Riley Woodford, the information officer for the Division of Wildlife Conservation, told the Empire that the event is meant \u201cto demystify trapping.\u201d Every year, he explained, ADFG holds the \u201cSharing the Trails\u201d event during trapping season to alleviate people\u2019s concerns about running into a trap while enjoying the outdoors. Woodford, who has attended and helped organize the last several years\u2019 events, said people are a bit apprehensive when they walk in the door, but relax when they understand that traps are usually far away from where people walk with their canine companions.<\/p>\n
These situations happen periodically, which is why there is community concern and why ADFG holds these presentations to educate the public. In March 2008, a basset hound was caught in a conibear trap<\/a> on the Eagle River Trail in Juneau and died; it was determined to be in an area legal for trapping. In December 2014, a bald eagle was caught in a snare<\/a> on the Davies Creek Trail and was freed by a Juneau woman, who also sprung nearby traps to protect her dogs, she said, which got her into legal trouble; the freed eagle later had to be euthanized. Also in December 2014, a chocolate lab was caught in a foothold style trap set illegally on Point Lena Trail<\/a>. The dog was not badly injured.<\/p>\n At today\u2019s event, two different types of traps \u2014 the conibear and a long spring foothold trap \u2014 will be shown; both are used for small animals like weasels, martens and beaver. People will be taught where they will be located and how they work. Participants will also be shown how to release their pets from these traps in case a situation ever occurs.<\/p>\n Woodford said the most common type of trapping that happens in Southeast Alaska is for marten, which are almost exclusively trapped in trees in a kind of box which he said is comparable to the size and shape of an Empire mail box.<\/p>\n With marten traps, they must be five feet above the ground, and if it has snowed, they must be five feet above the snow line. These traps must be 50 yards away from all roads and trails.<\/p>\n Trapping is closed a quarter of a mile off the coast on the mainland between the end of Thane Road to Echo Cove. All traps must be a quarter of a mile from all coastline on the mainland (and Douglas) as well as a quarter of the mile away from all roads and trails (the one exception being marten).<\/p>\n \u201cPeople cannot trap on the wetlands, Auke Lake, basically anywhere in the Mendenhall Valley,\u201d Woodford said.<\/p>\n Trapping is fairly restricted in the Juneau area, Woodford said, and usually trappers go to Admiralty Island or the backside of Douglas to do trapping.<\/p>\n For anyone who wishes to learn more about trapping but cannot make the presentation, they can go to \u201cSharing the Trails<\/a>\u201d on the ADFG website to see videos on how to release a pet from traps and snares as well as access more trapping and trail information on the sidebar: adfg.alaska.gov\/index.cfm?adfg=trapping.main<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Clara Miller at 523-2243 or at clara.miller@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trapping, an outdoors activity commonly associated with the Last Frontier, actually happens farther from home than many people might imagine \u2014 or at least Juneau trails. This is what the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Juneau Chapter of the Alaska Trappers Association want to educate the public on, especially dog walkers and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":34256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-34255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34255"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}