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My main project at right now is collaring black bears. Having never been a trapper, it was a very steep learning curve to go from no experience to live-trapping bears. But I'm getting it down and have been pretty successful recently. Here is a typical set. The area is baited for a few days prior to trapping with an array of foods and scents to get a bear in the area. The bucket is then set up with a spring. A goodie is placed on the trigger of the spring. When the bear reaches into the bucket and tugs on the snack the spring cinches a cable down around its wrist. You can see I have remote transmitters set. These tell me when the spring has been tripped so I can go check for a catch.
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Once caught I have to shoot the bear with a dart to deliver the drugs that make handling the bears possible. It can be pretty exciting to walk in on a bear tethered by only a 3/16" cable. In this pic the bear is getting pretty sleepy.
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Getting sleepier. This is just moments before it conked out and slid out of the tree onto the ground.
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Just about got this bear wrapped up and ready for release.
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Here she is groggily waking up from her nap and all blinged out.
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