Alabama Trappers & Predator Control Association March 2010 Report

President — Charlie Rath, 1501 Shelby Forest Lane, Chelsea, AL 35043; phone: 205-678-6146

Vice President
— Scott Wilson, 16291 Evans Road, Athens, AL 35611; phone: 256-565-4451; e-mail: Scott_wilson68@yahoo.com

Secretary/Treasurer — Bob Crane, 15295 Gainsville Road, Ralph, AL 35480; phone: 205-339-0081

Recording Secretary ­— Mike Flohr, 297 Kingfisher Road, Greensboro, AL 36744; phone: 334-507-2537

NTA Director — Jackie Malone, 11153 Crocker Dr., Tuscaloosa, AL 35405; phone: 205-366-9604

Membership Options:

• Family membership including subscription to The Trapper & Predator Caller — $20
• Lifetime membership with subscription to The Trapper & Predator Caller — $300

Complete membership application on first page of association section and send dues to:

ATPCA Secretary/Treasurer
Bob Crane
15295 Gainsville Road
Ralph, AL 35480
205-339-0081

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

The ATPCA’s Spring meeting will be held in Cottondale, AL at Steve Phillip’s house (11178 Staghorne Drive Cottondale, AL 35453, 205-556-3953) on Saturday March 27, 2010. Stop by anytime after 9 a.m. and talk trapping. Lunch will be served at noon. Please bring a dish to pass. The ATPCA will be providing the meat and drinks. The business meeting will be at 1 p.m. NAFA fur pick-up will also be available.

Note: If you plan on shipping fur with NAFA, please plan you arrival so that you can conclude your transfer by 11:45 a.m. NAFA representatives will not be accepting shipments from noon until after the business meeting. The NAFA representatives would like to enjoy lunch and attend the meeting with their fellow ATPCA members. Thank you for you cooperation on this matter. Signs will be posted. Current ATPCA members will be receiving a flyer on the event at the end of February.

The new ATPCA Web site has been completed and is up and running. You can view the site at www.atpca.org. The new Web site is made possible by the hard work of Vicki Sievering and Mike Sievering who provided moral support. If you have suggestions on the site, please let us know. We will now be able to revise and update the information in a timely manner.

By the time you receive this issue of the T&PC magazine, the four 2009-2010 Cooperative Trapper Education Workshops will have been completed. Many thanks to all of the individuals who helped made the programs a success by volunteering their time and talents.

The U. S. Sportsman’s Alliance and the Tukabatchee Area Counsel of the Boy Scouts of America will be holding a Trailblazer Adventure Day at Camp Tukabatchee, Prattville, AL on April 10, 2010 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For a second year, the ATPCA and Alabama DCNR will be presenting an overview of the Trapper Education program in Alabama. This is the same weekend as the NTA South East Regional Convention in Calhoun, GA. Jackie, Mike and I had already made a commitment to attend the NTA Regional Meeting. As a result, we need ATPCA members to volunteer to be at this event, please give me a call and volunteer. This is a great opportunity to portray traps, trappers and trapping in a positive light. Last year, we explained our trapper education program to hundreds of Scouts and their parents.

Membership renewal notice, please mail the two copies of your renewal notice that you received from the T&PC Magazine along with your payment to Bob Crane, ATPCA Treasurer as soon as you receive it. If you procrastinate, you could miss an issue of the T&PC.

Reminder: Alabama Regulation 220-2-.32 requires that each trapper report their harvest by number and species to the Alabama DCNR within 45 days after the end of the season. You can obtain a copy of the form at www.outdooralabama.com.

The National Trappers Association South East Regional Convention and Leadership Conference will be held in Calhoun, GA on April 8 – 11, 2010. The Leadership Conference will be on Friday, April 9, 2010 at the fairgrounds. The NTA is trying something new this year by combining the convention and leadership conference to hopefully boost attendance. Check the NTA Web site for more details. The ATPCA will have a booth at the convention. Please stop by and register so that we can get a count of how many Alabama trappers were in attendance.
See you at the Spring Meeting.

— Charlie Rath

NTA DIRECTOR’S REPORT

By the time you read this, we will have completed all four of our youth workshop’s this winter. As I’m writing this, the third one will begin tomorrow night in Coosa County. And once again the weatherman is predicting a change in our weather and it’s not for the better but from nice sunny days back to rain.

Currently we have 20 kids scheduled to attend this one and 21 for the last one being held in Greenville in February. Mike Sievering also did an interview about the workshops with a writer for Alabama Outdoors magazine so I imagine it will be coming out in a future issue and might even be picked up by the AP so be on the watch out for it. Just another example of all the great publicity trapping has got in the state from the efforts of all of you who have taken the time and made the effort to attend and help with these events. We are still lacking mentor’s though so I’ll once again ask that some of you step up and lend a hand with these.

I promise you will enjoy it and the smiles on the kids faces will the best payday you’ll ever get. So consider attending one or more of these next year if possible, we could use the help. On the national front, it appears the ruling in Maine is being appealed, seems these people never let up sometimes. I just became aware of a new group in California just this evening made up of legislators who agree with the animal rights agenda, they call themselves the Creature Caucus.

I’m sure PETA and HSUS as well as others will seek to form similar groups of lawmakers in every state so this is a real bad sign. I know it seems the animal rights nuts are up to something new all the time, which they are, but I’d hope each of you would be sure to renew your NTA membership when it arrives or if your’e not a member, join. Facing more and more battles each year with fewer and fewer members gets harder and harder to do so everyone is needed. It seems that fur prices are inching up here at the end of the season. I hope this is a sign of better times to come.

Well, I’m cutting this short as I need to get some last-minute items done before heading out in the morning to the workshop. Hope to see some of you at the spring meeting or the upcoming SE NTA convention being held in Calhoun, GA. If you have any question’s or comments, as always, just give me a call.

— Jackie Malone

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