APRIL 23, 2009 ISSUE
Business Spotlight
Trapper Mike—Helping Animals With People Problems For 7 Years
Mike “Trapper Mike” Wirscham works with area homeowners to rid their home of animals that are causing property damage. If preventative measures don’t work, Wirscham traps the animals and works with homeowners to make sure the nuisances don’t return. Photo submitted
Squirrels in the attic? Trapper Mike will work with you to find a way to exclude the pests without trapping.
Raccoons in your garbage cans? Trapper Mike will teach you how to build a cage/holder for the cans so it doesn’t happen again.
Is a bear, squirrel or raccoon eating birdseed from your feeder? Trapper Mike will tell you to take the feeder inside every night. The animals will eventually stop looking for it.
But is a raccoon in your attic eating electrical lines and the roofline? Trapper Mike will come immediately, trap the animal, relocate it at an approved location and then work with you, the homeowner, on installing exclusionary devices so it doesn’t happen again.
“I try to talk myself out of as many jobs as I can,” said Mike “Trapper Mike” Wirscham, who has operated his part-time trapping business in the High Country for seven years. “Trapper Mike is a Wildlife Damage Control Officer for the state of North Carolina. I am licensed and turn in quarterly reports to the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission. I help homeowners with animal problems and only trap when [the animals] are doing damage to home and/or property,” continued Wirscham.
North Carolina Animal Control only handles dogs and cats, which means that wide swaths of critter problems fall into Trapper Mike’s capable hands. Trapper Mike fields most of his phone calls from March to October, which are mostly from second homeowners who return to pesky creature-filled homes every spring.
Trapper Mike is one of three Wildlife Damage Control Officers serving the High Country and he makes house calls as far west as the Tennessee line, as far east as Fleetwood and as far south as Caldwell County.
Even though Trapper Mike operates his trapping business part-time in addition to his work as a collection agent, his trapping business is definitely full service. When residents contact Trapper Mike, he first tries to find a solution to the problem sans trapping.
“I try to help homeowners without having to trap animals,” said Wirscham.
If homeowners are having beaver issues, Trapper Mike tells them to wrap their trees if they want to save them. If animals are getting into a home but not causing any damage, Trapper Mike works with homeowners over the phone, free of charge, to implement “exclusionary work,” or steps a homeowner can take to make sure the animal doesn’t get in again and cause damage.
If the animal starts to cause damage to home or property, though, and Trapper Mike’s variety of integrated and ecologically responsible pest management techniques are not working, then he will come and trap the animal.
Trapper Mike traps beavers, groundhogs, raccoons, skunks, flying squirrels, chipmunks, squirrels, possums, rabbits, snapping turtles and a host of other pests that can cause damage to a home or property. Most animals he can relocate after trapping—if not carrying disease—including squirrels, snapping turtles, chipmunks, possums, groundhogs and flying squirrels. However, Trapper Mike is required by law to put down trapped raccoons, skunks and beavers after being caught.
“I try and find a solution, though,” said Wirscham. “My motto is ‘Helping Animals With People Problems,’ and I really try and do that. We keep building more and more homes in the High Country. As we keep developing more and more parts of the High Country, animals have less and less home range, so they will be around. If you buy five acres and put a house in the middle of it, you’ll have some wildlife.”
Trapper Mike offers reasonable prices for his services, he said, and will not charge a homeowner if an animal or solution is not found.
“I like to meet people, help people,” said Wirscham. “Once I help solve a problem, I try and prevent the animals from re-entering—what I call exclusionary work. If I never hear back from a homeowner, that mean’s a job’s well done. I like to do a good job.”
Wirscham grew up in rural Grafton, Ohio, where he attended Elyria Catholic High School. He was born to a family of dairy farmers and joked that if his grandmother had been a boy, he’d still be milking cows. He left Grafton to attend Ashland College in Ashland, Ohio, where he majored in marketing.
In 1972, at age 10, Wirscham bought his first trap for 25 cents at a yard sale. That summer, he used the trap to catch one muskrat and he sold the pelt for $8. The next year, Wirscham found a job, made more money and used it to buy more traps. He also subscribed to his favorite magazine, Fur, Fish & Game, for the first time—a subscription he still holds today.
In 1973, at age 11, Wirscham trapped enough animals to make $280 between November 7 and Christmas Day—quite a payload for that era.
“And I’ve been trapping ever since,” said Wirscham.
Trapper Mike now looks at his trapping business as his retirement job.
“I’d like to be doing this for a while. I’m like an oak tree,” said Wirscham. “My roots get deeper every year I live here.”
Trapper Mike is located in Blowing Rock. He is on call seven days a week at 828-295-6522. For more information, click to www.trappermike.com.
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