It’s a busy Monday morning for Northport’s Ron Baker, aka Trapper Ron, who is up to his eyeballs in rodent remediation, mostly mice and voles. He has 29 stops today, and 75 more by Friday.

But that’s just everyday work for this 57-year-old, owner of Leelanau County’s Humane Animal Removal & Relocation Services. 

The wildlife nuisance animal control operator, who is licensed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, says what he lives for are the bigger critters — the raccoons, the beavers, the bats, the porcupines, the skunks, the possums, the moles, the flying squirrels, the coyotes — that’s when Trapper Ron really feels alive.

Baker not only traps animals and relocates them, he also comes to their aid, like the little raccoon that had a run-in with a porcupine and had quills stuck in its face. Baker removed them, quill by painful quill, and sanitized each wound, despite the coon’s persistent snarling.

What’s also cool is that Baker has amassed a growing list of Leelanau County landowners who allow the wildlife he traps to be relocated on their property so the animals can live in more suitable surroundings, happily ever after.

We reached him in his truck between jobs, and picked his brain about his most exhilarating and rewarding jobs.

Leelanau Ticker: How long have you been doing this kind of work?
Trapper Ron: Thirty years. It was kind of by accident. We had a skunk problem at my house when I was young and I trapped it myself. Then later my mother-in-law had a possum caught in her window well and she paid a fortune to have it removed. At the time I owned a computer consulting business and traveled weeks on end. I did trapping as a hobby and started doing this full time. I don’t miss computing a bit.

Leelanau Ticker: Does your family work with you?
Trapper Ron: My oldest son Erik (35) runs a Trapper Ron’s branch in Fenton, my sister Karla Baker and my dad, Ron Sr., run the branch in the Detroit area, and my son Ethan (28) helps me here on the weekend. I taught them all.

Leelanau Ticker: What kind of wildlife do you see on your critter cam in Northport?
Trapper Ron: Bobcats, coyotes, fox and cranes are on my property all the time.

Leelanau Ticker: What was your hairiest job?
Trapper Ron: A guy called and said there was a beaver damming up the Crystal River on the mill property. The water was cold and really swampy and the beaver was about 100 pounds. I tried to live trap it and that wouldn’t work, so I had to use a padded leg-hold trap. Then I had to use a catch pole (a 12-foot pole with a neck coil and a rope) to get it out of the leg trap. Having a 100-pound animal on the end of a stick was not fun.

Leelanau Ticker: How do you catch skunks — without them spraying you — and possums?
Trapper Ron: With skunks, if you do it right, that’s the sweet smell of $100 bills. You just go at them fast and pick them up by the scruff of their necks and put them in live traps. Possums are the most docile — they just play dead — and you can pick them up.

Leelanau Ticker: Do you see many flying squirrels?
Trapper Ron: They tend to live in attics, they get in through holes in your siding. I had four jobs in a week last fall. If you see one or two, that means there are 20 or 30 in your attic.

Leelanau Ticker: What is the most unusual animal you’ve trapped?
Trapper Ron: An albino raccoon. I got it out of an office building, and no one could tell what it was.

Leelanau Ticker: Any more memorable jobs?
Trapper Ron: I got a call from a cottage on Lake Michigan. A woman said there was a dead deer on the beach, her daughters wanted to have a party there and she wanted it removed. I get there and it’s about 200 feet straight down. The woman said her daughters and friends would help me carry it out. I get down there and there are five girls, buck naked and drunk, but they helped me carry the deer uphill with a tarp.

Leelanau Ticker: How about your most heartwarming experience?
Trapper Ron: One Christmas Eve a woman called and said there was a skunk in her window well. After we negotiated a price, I told her I’d meet her at her house. When I arrived, she wasn’t there, but I could see her house was in really bad shape. I went ahead and trapped the skunk. When she finally returned, she told me she had to borrow the money from her mother to pay me. I told her to use it to buy Christmas presents for her kids. I never got into trapping to get rich. Primarily it’s fun to do and I love talking to people.

Pictured: An albino racoon rescued from an office building; proper skunk handling.