Hey guys just like the title says we had a fire on our trapline, one of the fires south of nordegg. Thankfully our cabin was spared along with our trapping equipment but from what I gather a decent part of the forest burned, I’ll find out the specifics in a couple weeks, there are still a few hotspots around that the firefighters are taking care of so I want to make sure I don’t get in their wayHas anyone else had fires on their lines before? If so what sort of timeline would one expect before the animals make their way back? For the most part we generally have caught marten, with some fox, marten and wolf.
Slough in general when the forest is gone, the fur is gone. It takes years before a forest is replaced and good number of fur bearing animals return. A pine marten does not like a burnt pine tree or cut block without any trees. Squirrels need spruce and pine cones from mature trees, marten need squirrels.
Sorry to hear of your loss to your trapline, last year many of us trappers were hit with the enormous mega fires.
Western Oregon is like a rain forest. Fur,hemlock,cedar are trees that grow there. I cannot comment much on the fire situation other than I feel bad for anyone that looses to a fire. I remember Brian Bildsen talking about trapping Martin in a burned out forest in a artical he wrote it surprised me that it was productive.
In general, if the fire was fairly large, there is not much for fur for a long time after, and was mentioned earlier, the burn is now a wet swamp if you get any amount of rain. We had the '98 Mitsue fire, 2 years later, the Chisholm fire from the other way, and lost a major portion of the trapline. Next to nothing for fur even now in these areas.
You require at least 50% forest on your trapline to produce marten. If major logging and fire or two and you drop below this amount of total forest you may need to trap beaver and weasels in future.
Fire on the trapline
Linear Mode
