By Jenny Neyman
Photo by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Skiers pass on a busy day at the Russian River Campground groomed ski trails in Cooper Landing earlier this month. The trails are open for people to bring along their dogs, but groomers worry about the potential for problems with trapping also allowed in the area.
Redoubt Reporter
Sitting inside, chatting on the phone or sipping coffee while having a conversation about the conflicts between trappers and dog owners, cool heads can concede that a middle ground exists with reasonable precautions and common sense applied on both sides.
But opinions and tempers can tighten and snap as quick as the mechanism of a trap when the topic is sprung in the field, by a four-legged friend yelping in fear and pain at being snared, or by trappers’ realizations that the time, effort and expense they’ve invested in establishing their trapline have been wasted by someone stealing or tampering with their equipment.
Those situations can start heads scratching over a more official approach — specifically, whether or not to institute regulations and, if so, what, when, where and how.
On the Kenai Peninsula, Cooper Landing has had an up-close experience in that debate. Though the community is home to less than 300 year-round residents, those residents and growing numbers of visitors have become increasingly active in wintertime outdoor recreational pursuits, such as skiing and snowshoeing, oftentimes bringing along their dogs. At the same time, the area also is traditionally popular among trappers, both from the area and beyond.
“The trapping around the Cooper Landing area is not exclusively done by Cooper Landing residents, but also people from Seward come in, Moose Pass, people from Anchorage and Girdwood also come down. They come from far away. I had people all the way from Fairbanks come down and set traps here,” said Robert Gibson, owner of Kenai Lake Lodge in Cooper Landing, executive director of the Kenai Peninsula Trappers Association and a member of the Cooper Landing Fish and Game Advisory Committee. “It’s a rural activity for the residents that live there (in more urban areas). Where there’s lots of people, I couldn’t imagine somebody setting traps there. Here, there’s not so many people.”
Not so many people in residence, certainly, but, especially with the advent of groomed ski trails in Cooper Landing and also in Moose Pass in recent years, there are more people out and about in the backcountry than there used to be. The trails are open for skiers and snowshoers to bring their dogs, as well.
“There have been a number of dogs that have, in the last couple of years, either been killed or been snared and/or injured by trapping. There was a dog this year right off our ski trails at Russian River caught in a snare,” said Ed Holsten, part of the volunteer crew of ski trail groomers in Cooper Landing. “There are some people who are adamantly against trapping and other people, like me, I’m kind of 50-50 on it. I’m not against it but I think, especially in Cooper Landing and also Moose Pass, where the last few years we put in a lot of time and effort into increased winter recreation use by grooming ski trails at Trail River Campground, the Old Sterling Highway, Russian River Campground and Resurrection Creek Trail, we’ve seen more of an increase in recreation use in the wintertime because of these groomed trails. We open the trails up to skiers, skijorers, snowshoers, people skiing with dogs or without dogs. This issue needs to be explored.”
Proposals for increased trapping regulations, such as requiring that traps and snares be set back a certain distance from recreational trails and around homes, have been proposed to the Cooper Landing Fish and Game Advisory Committee, which has supported them to the Board of Game, to no avail. So, the debate continues over whether an elixir of awareness, common sense and good behavior can soothe this issue, or whether a dose of regulatory action is needed.
“The local Fish and Game Advisory Committee is wrestling with this, the balance between what’s legal and what should be ethical. I think as Alaska grows up, there’s often this conflict between the way it’s always been and the way it’s going to have to be,” said Chris Degernes, who lives with her husband, Bill, in Cooper Landing.
As retired Kenai-area superintendent for Alaska State Parks, Degernes is familiar
Photo by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. There is no leash law on recreational trails in Chugach National Forest, such as the ski trails at Russian River Campground in Cooper Landing, and neither is there a setback distance in state trapping regulations dictating how far away from trails traps may be set.
with the trapping vs. pet dogs issue from the larger public policy perspective, and as a dog owner and winter recreationalist herself, she also has had some distressingly personal experiences with it.
Years ago, when she and her husband lived off Robinson Loop Road in Sterling, her dog got caught in a leg-hold snare while she was skiing along a trail near her house.
“Where he was caught it wasn’t illegal to trap there, it was public land. No, it wasn’t posted (that there was trapping in the area) and, no, I didn’t know (the trap was there). I was just skiing where I’d been skiing many, many times. The trapper had probably put some sort of scent with this trap and, of course, my dog being a dog, went and found it and got caught,” she said.
Degernes knew how to release the double-jump snare, and was able to free the dog.
“I’m trying to get this thing off him, he’s shrieking, he’s scared. It really didn’t hurt him, it scared him, it scared me. And all’s well that ends well because I was right there to get him out of the trap,” she said.
Another time while skiing with friends on Bottenintnin Lake off Skilak Lake Loop Road, a friend’s dog disappeared into the woods and didn’t return.
The dog’s owner, living in a residential neighborhood, had had the dog de-barked, and the skiers couldn’t hear its cries, but another dog in the party led the people to the animal, which was caught in a leg-hold snare.
“She was caught well enough she wasn’t going to be able to get out. It was back in the woods. We were lucky to find her,” Degernes said.
The dog was released with no lasting injuries, and they took the trap to authorities, since it is illegal to trap in the Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area.
Since moving to Cooper Landing in January, Degernes already has come across traps while taking her dog for snowshoe walks along Quartz Creek.
“We knew that there was probably trapping in the area because we actually saw some snares hanging in trees that were not set, from previous winters. We’ve been very vigilant. One day the dog was just ahead of me, he stops on the trail and is sniffing a snare that’s right on our snowshoe trail. That was within 100 yards of our house,” she said.
Luckily, in her experiences, the dogs haven’t come to lasting harm. She trains her dogs to heed her commands and though she lets them off leash, she keeps them close to her. She’s stays on the lookout for traps and keeps her dog right behind her if she knows a trap is close, but a dog still could get into trouble, especially if a trap is marked with scent or is set by a game carcass near a trail she’s on.
“I’m not as worried about him because he’s right with me, but I might not always have a dog that’s as well-behaved as this one, or I might have friends that have dogs that like to run and explore more, and I worry about their dogs,” she said.
Degernes also worries what would happen if, instead of a snare set for smaller game, a dog might happen across a Conibear trap set for larger furbearers.
“Leg-hold traps are a little more forgiving than Conibear traps. Conibears, unless you know how to release them, they’re designed to be lethal, and they are. It’s a big trap designed to kill the animal, which is humane if that’s what your target is, but if it’s a pet dog it’s really scary. Personally, that’s what I’m worried about,” she said.
Particularly scary is the fact that she has no way of knowing where traps may be. In the Chugach National Forest, trapping falls under general state regulations, which are specific in some respects, such as open seasons dates, use of firearms and requirements for sealing hides, but are lax in specifying where traps may be set. Not only smaller traps and snares, but big, lethal Conibear traps may be used on public property — even if that property is near a trail or adjacent to private property. Trappers also don’t have to post any sort of warning about the presence of their gear where passers-by in the area could see it.
Regulations call on the good judgment and common sense of the trapper rather than requiring any particular setbacks be observed — a matter of should and should not versus may and may not. The Alaska trapping regulation book reads:
“Act responsibly as a trapper and conservationist by trapping in ways to minimize conflict between trapping and other users, e.g., avoid high recreational use areas.
Avoid situations where you might catch a domestic dog or cat, such as near homes or trails frequently used by hikers, skijorers, dog mushers, or other people.”
Holsten, for one, would like to see those expectations codified more specifically and officially.
“There’s quite a bit of trapping around the Cooper Landing area and there are no setbacks (from trails or homes). It’s really not required to have setbacks. If you look at the trapping regs there’s some general guidelines — the trapper is supposed to shy away from heavily used recreation areas. But it doesn’t say ‘have to,’ it kind of says a good trapper ‘will do’ it,” Holsten said.
Gibson says that regulations shouldn’t be necessary for trappers and dog owners to safely share an area if both parties tact responsibly.
“The most important part is the ethical character of the trapper. He knows that there is a trial used for skiing or whatever to stay out of there. Likewise, if a skier or hiker knows there is a trapline, they should stay out of there and avoid it. So, there is a give and a take here between the different trail users. And one should be aware of the other’s activities. They’re all allowed, so to be used in harmony with one another,” he said. “One doesn’t have preference over the other. We all share the resources — trappers or skijorers or hikers and dog walkers, whatever it might be. But we have to be aware of one another’s activity.”
At the start of the winter, Gibson contacted Holsten and asked that the ski group post a message on its grooming website letting skiers know that there is trapping in the area. He’s taught classes for the community on how to release pets accidentally caught in a trap. He also has a poster he provides to trappers and asks them to display it on a tree in the area of their trapline.
It warns anyone seeing the sign that there are traps in the area and reminds them that tampering with a trap is illegal. Once aware of the traps, people in the area have a responsibility to steer clear of them. And, really, people should keep control of their dogs anyway, Gibson said, both for the safety of the dog and so they don’t harass wildlife.
“You can keep your dogs in close proximity if you have control of them to call them in, but dogs are supposed to be on a leash. That is very important, specifically at this time when the snow is fairly deep and when moose are around there they can’t move as fast, and if a dog takes after a moose it will stress the life out of the game,” Gibson said.
Good practice dictates that trappers should avoid heavily used recreation areas anyway, he said.
“If the majority of the activity would be for skiing activities, obviously it’s not going to be a good spot for a trapper simply because the game is going to start to shy from that area. If that is noticed, if both groups tend to use that area and you see a tendency to catch less and less furbearers, than that is considered a not good area for trapping and then you would move on to another area,” he said.
If those best practices were always followed, there wouldn’t be a need for additional regulations. But that’s not always the case, said Holsten’s wife, Sandra. She referenced two instances at the ski trails this year. In one, a trapper used the groomed ski trails to drag a sled full of gear out to set traps near the trail.
“OK, now that’s excessive. But on the other hand there was a guy already trapping up at Russian River Falls after we started grooming. He carefully took his snowmachine up the side of the trail, marked his trap (so people knew it was there), I mean it was absolutely no conflict whatsoever. He was a local guy who did that. He knew we were starting to groom, he knew it was good for the community, he bent over backwards to make sure he didn’t hurt our trails and he didn’t hurt people’s dogs,” she said.
Whether by sheer disregard for others or — more likely, most agree — by accident or lack of information and experience, unmarked traps do end up in dangerous proximity to trails and homes, she said.
“There’s a lot of feeling that our local trappers are pretty mindful of where people recreate. But we think we get quite a few people from Anchorage coming down on the weekend to trap. And they don’t know where we ski or where people hike or where people live,” she said, “These Conibear traps, too, they can literally put them right next to your house, and a kid could get in one of those. It would drive me crazy to think that I couldn’t let my dogs out in the backyard to piddle that there might be a trap there.”
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Bill Stockwell, a past chair of the Cooper Landing Fish and Game Advisory Committee, said he can remember at least three times the committee submitted a proposal to control trapping in the area to the Board of Game.
“We had dogs caught, we had dogs injured, we had dogs maimed and we had dogs killed. We had traps placed too close to homes and trails, in our opinion. I briefed the Board of Game as committee chair at least twice with zero success. The first time I was listened to and turned down, the second time I was treated less friendly and told to have the borough enact a leash law,” he said.
Degernes agrees that owners should keep control of their pets, but points out that it’s just as legal for dog owners to enjoy trails with their pets off leash on public land as it is for trappers to set their gear there. Where’s the line?
“Unless we’re regulating people to require them to have their dogs leashed, they’re not required to. So it becomes, what’s the difference between a legal issue and a moral issue?” she said.
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has trapping requirements above and beyond state regulations — such as requiring trappers take a class, that they mark their traps, that they check their lines in certain time periods, and that they observe setbacks from trails, roads and homes. Chugach State Park — covering Anchorage, parts of the Matanuska-Susitna valleys and the Turnagain Arm area — also has additional regulations restricting trapping within part of its boundaries in heavily populated and popular recreation areas.
Degernes was still working for Parks when the Chugach State Parks regulations came about. About six years ago Parks started drafting trapping restrictions, vetted them with public meetings and was ready to submit them to the governor when the Board of Game enacted its own regulations, rescinding the allowance to trap wolverine (which involved Conibear traps), requiring that trappers register at park headquarters in advance, that traps be marked with the owner’s identification number and that they be set back 50 yards from trails and a quarter mile from all roads and trailheads.
“The Board of Game was incensed that Alaska State Parks would even consider getting into the trapping business. And we said we don’t want to be in the trapping business, but we have a responsibility to try to provide some safety for recreation users, and even though pets aren’t the public, to the public they’re family. And we have the legal ability to manage traps for public safety,” she said.
The regulations changed about four years ago and took a lot of effort and debate, she said. She thinks similar restrictions would benefit residential and popular recreational areas of the Chugach National Forest.
“The challenge I think that Ed (Holsten) is finding is he’s being rebuffed by them (Board of Game) when the local advisory committee makes recommendations, so I think there really needs to be more public awareness of what some of the possibilities are. It’s not likely that one of the possibilities is no trapping within 50 miles of Cooper Landing — that’s not a possibility, that’s not going to happen. But a possibility might be reasonable setbacks from recreation trails, which would allow trapping to occur but would also allow recreational users to have some reasonable safety for their pets as long as they manage their pets within that corridor. That seems to me to be an appropriate approach,” she said.
Drafting such regulations is no easy, trap-free walk in the park, however. For one thing, how large a setback is appropriate? Degernes thinks 100 yards, minimum, to a quarter of a mile from trails and dwellings would be appropriate, and dog owners would be expected to keep their pets in control and within that corridor.
“Pet owners need to be reasonably responsible. If their dog is ranging a half mile off the trail, quite a ways from them, they really don’t know what their dog is up to and it’s harder for them to ensure their dog is safe,” she said.
Another sticky issue is how to define a trail from which to require a trapping setback.
“There’s trails like Resurrection Trail, which is a known, legally existing trail. How about the trail into Cooper Lake dam, which is actually kind of a road and snowmachine trail? Or how about the Old Sterling Highway? These are places I like to go, so how would we define a trail? I think that would be a challenge legally because the Board of Game would need to make sure that what they propose is something that can be legally defined in regulations. Well, is it a little neighborhood trail or is it an established trail, like the trail to Lower Russian Lake?”
The Holstens said they want recognition that the area is not uninhabited backcountry with regulations that help define how people can live, recreate and trap in a shared area.
“We’re not living in the Bush here, and I am not anti-trapping. People are on all sides of the issue, but it seems kind of like we’re in the dark ages here thinking this is not a community,” Sandra Holsten said.
Still, Cooper Landing isn’t Anchorage, either. It needs a solution reflective of its residential qualities as well as it’s recreational and trapping appeal, Degernes said.
“You need to make sure that the fix is tuned into the problem in the area. A solution we would propose for this area would be ludicrous for most of Alaska. But in Southcentral Alaska where there’s more and more residential use and recreation use, an appropriate balance somehow would make sense to me,” she said.
The Mouth of The Kenai 