Wildlife trappers move nature’s pests back outdoors

Since first moving to Wisconsin in 2000, I’ve lived in the country and loved every minute of it.

As more city dwellers move to the country, they are drawn to the natural beauty and critters — until those critters move into their homes. That’s where nuisance wildlife trappers come in.

When we had bats in the wall of our house, we knew who to call. One of my best friends, Tom Walters of Bettendorf, Iowa, is not only a long-time fur trapper, but makes a nice part-time income as a nuisance trapper, too. Fur prices have plummeted from their highs in the late 1970s, but when a homeowner has a few bats flying through the living room (been there, watched that) or a snake under the kitchen sink (yep, that too), the urgency in their voices is crystal clear in the calls to Walters’ American Bat Management.

I grew up in Illinois as an avid hunter under the tutelage of my father and older brother. When fur prices shot up in my high school years, my pal Eric Borgman and I ordered a dozen No. 2 double-coil traps from Herter’s mail-order catalog and started reading a few trapping magazines and books. To say we were “slob trappers” was an understatement. We didn’t know what we were doing, but we did check our traps every day as the law required.

When I met Walters in the 1990s, I decided to take an Iowa Department of Natural Resources trapper ed class that he and his buddy, Ed Grillot, led. They explained trap placement, various sets, proper trap size, fur handling and much more. I’m sure Eric and I would have earned enough to keep two high schoolers happy had I had the class back then.

Walters used his vast trapping background to get rid of the “small colony” of bats in our house, using an exclusion technique. Something as simple as a short piece of plastic eve spout with a one-way swinging door is placed in the bats’ tiny entranceway (found by locating tiny bat droppings) with duct tape until the bats leave at night. We only counted 44 — a small colony. After a few days, the holes are sealed and the bats can’t get back inside.

Nuisance trappers make a good living, but removing critters from a house is not only a relief, but has health benefits, too. Bat droppings carry many diseases and can make residents sick. The same is true of rodents like squirrels, mice, rats and chipmunks, all of which keep Walters and other critter getters busy.

Most farmers and other country residents learn to use a .22 rifle or pellet gun to get rid of the occasional starling, garden-raiding ground squirrel or other small vermin. When a skunk wanders up to the campfire during a cookout or crawls under your deck, you’ll probably want to call a nuisance wildlife trapper with the expertise and specialized equipment to handle it without a stinky mishap.

Walters, 68, began his trapping career catching pocket gophers on the farm as a boy. He switched over to the more lucrative fur trapping, starting with muskrats, mink and raccoons.

What’s most interesting is how the once-profitable fur business has dropped off (Asian markets for fur remain strong, but American demand has fallen) and the nuisance trapping business continues to grow as more people move to the country and encounter more critters.

Walters began a part-time nuisance trapping business while he was still a meat cutter at a chain grocery store in the Quad-Cities. He expanded to trapping bats after a fellow trapper suggested the idea.

Bat removal involves a technique called exclusion. After the trapper locates the entrance and exit holes (bats can crawl through a hole the size of a dime), he seals off all but one or two with expanding foam, then tapes a small piece of plastic drain pipe with a one-way hinged door at the remaining holes. After 10 days or so, when all the bats have left the dwelling, he then removes the devices and seals the remaining holes.

Trappers are clever folks, often coming up with simple critter catchers. Walters said he uses a pizza box with glue traps inside to catch snakes. He makes a couple holes in the sides of the closed box and sets it near the wall. After the snakes get stuck on the glue traps, he uses Pam cooking spray to get the glue to release. Then he releases the snakes to a distant woods.

In Wisconsin, a nuisance trapper doesn’t need any special license, other than a standard trapping license, said Mike Wilhite, a 10-year, full-time nuisance trapper and owner/publisher of The Trapper’s Post trapping magazine in Scandinavia.

Wilhite has trapped bats, snakes, rodents and many other home invaders. He even helped remove four coyotes that were preying on people’s pets in the city of Waupaca.

Wilhite’s advice to people who want to try the business is to “trap stuff that people are scared of.” Bat calls are the most profitable, but “you’d better not be afraid of heights,” he added.

When it all goes wrong and a skunk sprays you, the answer is this: 1 quart of hydrogen peroxide, ¼ cup of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of dishwashing soap mixed together and applied to skin or pet fur.

Take it from a pro trapper: It works better than tomato juice.

Ross Bielema is a freelance writer from New London and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.