Time to get out and do your scouting now for your trap lines. Use your daily trapping journal and make notes on special landscape items to guide you after the leaves fall and the days are shorter or water tables get a little lower with our earthen dam man made ponds water levels are lowered for the many docks and beach cleanings. Freeze some remains from your fall fishing and other hunts to use for baits and scents.
Animal activists have no sense of proportion. Each year, North Americans use about 7 million animals for fur. That’s one sixteenth of one percent of the 12 billion animals they use for food. Yet animal activists focus more attention on the fur trade than on all other livestock industries combined. Go figure!
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Canada’s beaver population has never been bigger. The national animal of Canada has been prized for its luxuriant fur for hundreds of years, yet wildlife biologists believe there are as many today as there were before Europeans arrived. They also believe coyotes, foxes and raccoons are more populous now than ever. Truly modern trapping, regulated to allow only the removal of nature’s surplus, is a perfect example of the sustainable use of renewable natural resources!
Rhode Island Trapping 2017/ 2018
Species DatesSeason Bag Limit 0
Pelt Tagging 0
Mink, Muskrat, Skunk, Raccoon, Opossum, Weasel, Red Fox, Gray Fox, Rabbit
November 1 - January 31, 2018
Coyote- Private no closed season: Bag Limit 0 Pelt Tagging 0
none no
Coyote- State Land November 1 - January 31,
2018 Beaver- Private* November 1 - March 14, 2018
20 yes
Beaver- State Land*
December 1 - February 28, 2018 Fisher* December 1 - 24 4 yes * Special permit required in addition to RI trapping license, which may be obtained at Fish and Wildlife’s Great Swamp Field Headquarters (401) 789-0281 or email DEM.DFW@dem.ri.gov
General Regulations • No person shall set, maintain, or tend any trap without first obtaining a trapping license from the Department of Environmental Management. A resident of this state may set traps on property which they own and on which they are domiciled without obtaining a trapping license. (RIGL 20-16-7) • Every holder of a trapping license will be provided with a trapping harvest report card that must be returned to the Division of Fish and Wildlife within 30 days of the end of the trapping season. Failure to return the card will result in denial of trapping license renewal. (RIGL 20-16-12) • Traps may not be set, staked, or placed prior to 8:00 AM opening day. • All traps must have at a minimum the trapper’s current RI trapping license number attached by a metal tag or embedded or cut into the trap. (RIGL 20-6-7) • Written landowner permission is required to trap on private land. (RIGL 20-16-9) • All traps must be checked at least once in every 24-hour period. (RIGL 20-6-9) • There is no open season on bobcat (Lynx rufus) or river otter (Lontra canadensis). Types of Traps Permitted Furbearers for which there is an open season may be taken in: box (a.k.a. “cage”) traps, body-grip (a.k.a. “conibear”) traps, or species specific traps, with the following restrictions: Body-grip traps Private land: Body-grip (a.k.a. smooth wire or “conibear”) type traps up to 6 ½” jaw spread (i.e. “110, 120, 160” or equivalent) are permitted on land or in water on private land. Body-grip type traps greater than 6 ½” but not exceeding 8” jaw spread (“220”) may only be set if completely submerged in water or set no less than six (6) feet above the surface of the ground. Body-grip traps greater than 8” but not exceeding 10” jaw spread (“330”) may only be set completely submerged in water.
State land: Body-grip traps up to 6 ½” jaw spread are only permitted in water sets (i.e. all or a portion of the trap in water) or if placed six (6) feet above the ground. Body-grip traps with a jaw spread greater than 6 ½” but not exceeding 10” (“220-330”) may only be set if completely submerged in water. Box traps The use of box traps is permitted on private and state lands. Species specific traps The use of species specific traps is permitted on private and state land. A species specific trap is characterized by all of the following: triggering and restraining mechanisms are enclosed within a housing; triggering and restraining mechanisms are only accessible through a single opening when set; access opening does not exceed 2 inches in diameter; triggering mechanism can only be activated by a pulling force; has a swivel mounted anchoring system. Permit to trap state lands All trappers harvesting furbearers from state management areas must obtain a special permit (no fee), issued by the Division of Fish and Wildlife, Great Swamp Field Headquarters in addition to their current RI trapping license. Prohibitions • The use of poisons or snares (RIGL 20-16-6). • The use of steel-jawed leghold traps (RIGL 20-16-8). • No person shall disturb, tend, or possess a trap of another, or take an animal from the traps of another unless specifically authorized to do so. (RIGL 20-16-12). • The setting of traps within ten feet of a beaver lodge or bank den or within eight feet of a muskrat lodge unless authorized by special permit. • The taking or possession of a road-killed furbearer (RIGL 20-16-1), unless with a current RI trapping license and during the open season for that species or as provided for under a current RI Scientific Collectors Permit (RIGL 20-1-18) or otherwise permitted by the Division. • The relocation of beaver. • The use of deadfalls, pitfalls, fish hooks, treble hooks, or other similarly sharpened instruments to catch, capture, or injure furbearers is prohibited
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