This project will have two primary objectives, each of which is designed to support and assist state fish and wildlife agencies with their regulated trapping and furbearer management programs.first,…

This project will have two primary objectives, each of which is designed to support and assist state fish and wildlife agencies with their regulated trapping and furbearer management programs.first, the association of fish and wildlife agencies (afwa) will contract with responsive management to conduct a national survey of trappers. The survey will gather information on:1) characteristics (demographics, economics, motivations) of the public who participate in trapping,2) trap types being used for the capture of various furbearer species,3) trapper knowledge and use of best management practices for trapping, AND4) the number of trappers in the U.S.information gathered in this survey will be used to guide the national program to develop best management practices (BMP) for trapping so afwa can continue to provide our member agencies with trap type technique recommendations on the most humane, safe, selective, effective, and practical traps to use for the capture of furbearers. Agencies use trapping to achieve many wildlife management objectives, and all agencies want to ensure the best traps are being used. Afwa needs to know what trap types are currently in use, so we can scientifically evaluate those devices against the international organization for standardization standards. Since 1997 the BMP program has tested over 725 trap types on 23 species of furbearers, conducted over 500 individual field projects to capture furbearers across 41 states, and conducted necropsies on over 10,000 animals to help evaluate the humanness of traps. We recently published some of these results in wildlife monographs. But afwa needs the information that will be collected in this survey to maintain the BMP program s cutting-edge relevance and support agencies desire to recommend the most humane safe selective traps for trappers to use.