By PERRY BACKUS Ravalli Republic
HAMILTON – Cross-country skiers at Lake Como won’t have to contend with wolf traps right alongside trails at the popular ski area.
After hearing from hundreds of people concerned about that potential Thursday, Bitterroot National Forest officials made the necessary adjustment to ensure that legally set traps would be at least 150 feet back from the trails.
The Montana Trappers Association and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks have taken it one step beyond that. They urge wolf trappers to look for other places that aren’t so heavily used.
On Wednesday, Darby District Ranger Chuck Oliver said several trappers had set traps in the area groomed by the Como Trails Club after the state’s first wolf trapping season opened last weekend.
Since some of the 25-plus miles of groomed trails near Lake Como followed routes not included on the agency’s official trails system, trappers weren’t required to follow the 150-foot setback regulation for wolf traps.
That raised concerns since the area is a popular place for people who like to ski with their dogs.
On Thursday, Bitterroot Forest Supervisor Julie King said she would sign an order that temporarily makes the trails designated routes and therefore requires trappers to follow the setback regulation.
“We were notified yesterday by members of the Como Trails Club that there may have been traps set in the area, near some popular trails,” King said. “Today, we’ve been working closely with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and have talked with representatives of the trapping community. We’re all concerned because the Como ski area is a high-use, very popular area, and it’s a public safety issue if we have people setting these traps in such high-traffic areas.”
Lake Como is popular in the wintertime for skiing, snowshoeing and ice fishing.
“We think there are much better areas on the forest for trappers to have success than the highly populated ski trails around Lake Como,” King said.
FWP regional wildlife manager Mike Thompson agreed.
“We taught wolf trappers to do the right thing, even when the wrong thing is legal,” Thompson said. “I think every graduate of our wolf trapping class would agree that the Lake Como ski trails are a poor place to trap wolves. Apparently, even the person who posted the signs did not set a trap there.”
Montana Trappers Association District 2 director Toby Walrath said that organization urges trappers to avoid trapping in high-use recreation areas like Lake Como.
The six-hour mandatory orientation course that all wolf trappers were required to complete included a section on ethics telling trappers to be aware of other outdoors users and to avoid conflict, Walrath said.
Situations like this one are frustrating, he said.
“We want to advocate a common-sense approach for trappers and wolf trapping in Montana,” Walrath said. “It’s a tough issue. We want to find common ground with all recreation users, whether they are consumptive or not.”
Members of the Montana Trappers Association worked with the public, FWP and the Bitterroot Forest to set aside the Bass Creek Recreation Area as non-trapping area earlier this year.
Walrath said the association also supports the U.S. Forest Service interim regulation for the Lake Como trails that will allow enforcement of the trapping setback.
Jason Maxwell of Missoula was the trapper who posted signs at the trailheads that warned skiers about the potential that wolf traps could be set near the current trail system.
On Thursday, Maxwell said he had not actually set any traps near the ski trails.
His frustration over the situation stemmed for the Forest Service’s earlier decision to restrict snowmobile use on the roads set aside for cross-country skiers. Maxwell wanted to be able to access the area west of Lake Como that was outside of the ski area to trap wolves.
Maxwell grew up in the Darby area and had used the road before to access the area. He said his frustration over the closure was heightened this week after he used snowshoes to travel to the other end of the lake and was met by ski club members grooming the trail on a road that had been closed to the public for years.
“I’d spent three hours walking to it and then here comes three snowmobiles,” he said. “The Forest Service had made an exception and allowed them to ride on a road closed to motorized travel.”
Maxwell said he posted the signs to make a point and bring the access issue forward.
“It probably wasn’t the best way to get it stirred up,” he said. “It’s just one of those things … if I had known about the meetings where the Forest Service talked about closing the road for skiers, I would have voiced my opinion then.”
“Unfortunately, I was in Iraq when that happened,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell said he wouldn’t set a trap where a dog might be caught.
“I’ve got dogs, too,” he said. “I would hate for them to get stuck in a trap. I would never put a trap in that recreational area.”
But there’s still the issue of access.
“They are preventing us from getting to these wolves,” he said. “They can keep me and my snowmobile out. I guess my next step will be to take my horses. I suppose that would cause a stir, too.”