NWT - Most NWT trappers are already out on the land, preparing their base camps and getting ready for the season's official start on Nov. 1.

Jim Elias, a 36-year veteran trapper from Tuktoyaktuk, still makes his living catching marten. But he says in many ways "the trapper is just like a forgotten species."

"Trapping is not far out the door," said Elias, one of only about five trappers in Tuk.

"I'd rather keep my kids in school (to) get an education and get a different kind of job," he added. "I'm going to teach them all about hunting and trapping and stuff but it's more or less something to fall back on."

Elias said trapping is still a viable industry for those who are willing to work hard at it, but he suspects not many young people are.

"When I was eight, nine years old, we were already playing with traps and learning how to set traps and now I see someone 20 years old who doesn't even know what a trap looks like," he said. "It's a dying off thing, I think."

An avid trapper who hunts marten -- the most valued fur in NWT -- for the full season from November to March can expect to make a profit of roughly $20,000, after covering expenses such as gas and equipment.

Elias said he earned between $68 and $72, on average, per marten pelt last season and caught about 400 of the animals.

"If you've got no job or nothing but you've got a little bit of equipment, you could make some money out there," he said, especially because he's noticed a dramatic decline in trappers in the Delta region. "(There) was more fur for the taking for myself so that's one of the reasons I still say it's pretty profitable."

The GNWT offers several programs aimed at preserving the trapping industry, including the Community Harvesters Assistance program and the Take a Kid Trapping program. Elias said he supports any effort to get more young people involved in the industry, but that if the youth don't stick with trapping, as many don't, their participation in these types of programs simply inflates the government's estimated number of trappers in NWT, which Elias believes is too high.

"You've got students going out and somebody traps five marten or something and then all of a sudden they're recognized as a trapper and our trapping industry is all of a sudden booming and we're getting more people trapping because of the fur industry, but it's not so," he said.

Elias' comments dispute a recent study by the GNWT that showed an increase of trappers this year. However, the study does support the Elias' beliefe in the decline of the trapping industry as a whole.

Once the premier economic industry in the NWT, trapping and fur trading is now actively practised by less than two per cent of the territory's population, according to the 2009 Economic Review released earlier this month by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

The report indicates there are about 744 trappers in the NWT this year, mostly aboriginal men, up slightly from 627 trappers in 2007/08. The increase in trapping activity over the past year is likely connected, at least in part, to the global economic downturn, said Don Craik, Inuvik regional superintendent of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

"I think it's a little bit of an indication of our economic downturn and some of the programs that we've had with youth and training youth in trapping," Craik said, adding that more people turn to trapping when there are fewer employment opportunities available.

Over the past few years the value of NWT's fur harvest has remained fairly steady – it was worth about $1.3 million in 2007/08 compared to $1.4 million in 2005/06. Though rising fuel prices and higher supply costs have made trapping more expensive, Craik said access to government money for trapper education programs is also improving.

"In recent years we've been able to access additional funding for traditional economy programs," Craik said. "It's helping to sustain the industry as well as the interest."

And it doesn't hurt that NWT furs are selling high at auctions, Craik added, meaning the government hasn't had to reduce the pelt rates it pays to trappers through the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur Marketing Program.

"We've had some of the best fur sales over the past couple of years that we've ever had – other than seals, of course," he said.