Trapper Squares Off In Court

Photo by David Duncan
Photo by David Duncan

 

 

Somebody call Judge Judy, or, for older fans of some of the early days of reality TV, this guy. A trapper is facing off in Southeast Alaska court with a woman who allegedly sprung his traps.

The Peninsula Clarionvia the Juneau Empire, with details on the case:

In John Forrest’s eyes, anti-trappers have been springing his traps, stealing his catch, destroying his equipment and generally hindering his livelihood for years. The offenders have always remained faceless, and they’ve always gotten away with it.

“It’s an ongoing issue,” Forrest said of such incidents from the witness stand Monday in Juneau District Court.

Last winter, that changed. Forrest finally found out, through “a number of coincidences” as his attorney put it, who had sprung several of his traps on Davies Creek trail in December 2014: Kathleen K. Turley, whom he sued last month seeking $5,000 worth of damages.

Except Turley — who rescued an eagle ensnared in one of Forrest’s traps that day — isn’t who Forrest thinks she is, her attorney Nicholas Polasky argued before Judge Thomas Nave during a small claims trial Monday. Polasky described his client as a born-and-raised Alaskan who hunts grouse, deer and brown bear, has animal skins and hides on the walls of her house, and raises meat rabbits to butcher and eat.

“She’s a hunter,” Polasky said in opening statements. “She’s a person who’s not against trapping and is not the type of person that we think Mr. Forrest probably thinks that she is.”