Trapper Education Video DVDs for Instructors

This is a set of two DVDs designed to help instructors teach official state and provincial wildlife agency trapper education courses. The instructional videos on the DVDs were developed along with, and in support of, the new national trapper education course manual and curriculum we authored for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. We worked with furbearer biologists, trapper education instructors, and trapping associations to cover all types of legal trapping devices, methods, and best practices.

Silvertip Productions recognizes trapping as a beneficial and essential tool of wildlife management, but it is important for trappers to use safe and responsible trapping techniques. The producer, Jim Wentz, administered one of the nation's largest trapper education programs and taught many classes covering hundreds of trapper education students. The videos on the Trapper Education Video Series DVDs are designed to help instructors be more effective when teaching trapping classes anywhere in North America.

There are 63 selections on the set of Trapper Education DVDs. The easy to use menus allow instructors to navigate to the selections they need to show, in any order.

Features of the Trapper Education Video DVD Disc 1

Trap Overview - 9 minutes 28 seconds

Covers the basic types of traps, parts, anchoring, tuning, and preparation (footholds, body-gripping, colony traps, box traps, snares, etc.)

Responsible Trapping - 3 minutes 24 seconds

Covers the responsibilities trappers have to the resource, landowners, and the general public to reinforce instructor presentations.

Wildlife (Furbearer) Management - 2 Minutes

Supports the course material on wildlife management with a focus on river otter restoration, showing how trappers and wildlife biologists worked together to bring river otters back to states where they had been extirpated.

Fur Handling Overview - 5 Minutes 32 seconds

Covers the basic steps and techniques for handling furbearers, skinning, fleshing, stretching, and selling pelts. This provides a foundation of knowledge for Disc 2 - Pelt Preparation.

Water Sets Menu - Short Individual Videos from the Actual Trapline

Muskrat Bank Den, Muskrat Lodge Den, Climbout Feedbed, Obstruction Set, Guarded-Stop Loss, Orange Trap sets (several water sets using a blaze orange conibear and foothold for high visibility), Beaver Body-Gripping Set, Cable Devices (snares) for Beaver, Beaver or Otter Set, Double Spring Under ice Set, Otter Body-Gripping Trap Set

Land Sets Menu - Short Individual Videos from the Actual Trapline

Bedding Land Traps, Dirt-Hole Set, Flat Set, Post Set, Cubby Set, Enclosed Foothold Overview, Egg Trap, Duffer's Trap, Lil' Griz Trap

 - Land Set Photos

Bucket Set on Ground, Bucket Set on Tree, Body Gripping/Bucket 1, Body-Gripping Bucket 2, Running Pole Set 1, Running Pole Set 2, Body-Gripping Strike, Body-Gripping Box Construction

Furbearer identification Videos - Short Individual Videos (show only those you need)

Arctic fox, badger, beaver, bobcat, Canada lynx, coyote, fisher, gray fox, gray wolf, kit fox, marten, mink, muskrat, nutria, opossum, ringtail, river otter, striped skunk, swift fox, weasels, wolverine

Pelt Preparation DVD - Disc 2 of the Trapper Education Video Series

This DVD features six videos to teach trapper education course students how to care for fur and sell it. The videos contain many tips from an expert trapper who has worked in fur houses and graded pelts at fur auctions. Students also learn about different ways to sell fur, from local buyers, to auctions, to traveling furbuyers.

Fur Handling Overview - 5 minutes 32 seconds

Same as the video on Disc 1 for convenience

Muskrat Pelt Preparation - 6 minutes

Mink Pelt Preparation - 11 minutes 12 seconds

Raccoon Pelt Preparation - 13 minutes 10 seconds

Gray Fox - Skinning Only - 2 minutes 37 seconds

Beaver Pelt Preparation - 19 minutes 30 seconds

These videos will help students understand fur handling from the field to the auction house. How to comb, skin, flesh, stretch and dry the pelts. Where to find the glands that can be used for lure or sold. How furbuyers will grade their pelts. Also information on health concerns, and edible meat from certain furbearers.

Other Benefits - Trapper Education Video Series DVDs

Promotes interactive instruction in a way that enhances instructor participation and promotes student understanding. The menu system gives you the flexibility to show what you want to show, and when you want to show it

Captions for the Hearing-Impaired (Use the subtitle button to turn on)

High Resolution and Sharp Freeze Frames (so you can stop the action to explain important points or answer questions)

Shows expert trappers making the sets, checking them, and harvesting muskrats, raccoons, beaver, coyote, bobcat, river otter.

Reduces the amount of equipment you need in the classroom. Students see equipment in use on the trapline or in the fur shed.

Shows many actions you can’t show in the classroom: A cat caught in a foothold that was released unharmed; Live captured animals dispatched; River otter restoration; and much more.

Shows scenes from the Ohio State Trappers Association (OSTA) fur auction, the National Trappers Association (NTA) Convention, a traveling buyer, and more. The DVDs promote involvement in trapping organizations and wildlife stewardship.

View Dozens of Screen Shots at the Top of this Page.

Click on the first small image to see the larger images in the slide viewer. You will see dozens of screen shots from the Trapper Education Video Series, and many of them are have text explanations.