It may just be for real this time.

According to Prince William County Sgt. Linda Kauffmann, the Animal Control Bureau will stop trapping nuisance animals at taxpayer expense as of Jan. 1, 2011. The policy change comes more than a year after Animal Control officials first said the agency was planning to discontinue the practice, which often times involves euthanizing wild animals when property owners report their presence on their property.

"We've been advising people all through the year" about the upcoming change, said Kauffmann. She explained that the department gained a new administrator, 1st Sgt. Dawn Harman, in February and that there really was no explanation for delaying the termination of the policy other than timing.

Animal Control will still respond to serious complaints, according to Kauffmann. She described "nuisance" situations as those where wild animals pick apart someone's garbage or just generally walk across their land.

More serious situations will involve those where people or their domesticated pets, such as cats and dogs, come into contact with wild animals, such as when a dog gets into a fight with a raccoon. The reason for Animal Control responding there is more to check the wild animal for rabies instead of strictly to trap and remove it.

Wild animals, technically speaking, are the property of the state government, Kauffmann explained. According to Officer Randy Grauer of the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries, the state government picking up the tab and trapping animals is off the table. "We will not trap and we do not trap wild animals," he said, responding to speculation last year that property owners could call Game and Inland Fisheries to have nuisance animals removed once Animal Control stops trapping.

Grauer, who works with the Prince William County sector of the Game and Inland Fisheries, did make one exception to the rule, saying that the department does trap bears in order to keep regular citizens away.

"The difference is they're such a large animal," Grauer said. "We don't want people to get involved with them."

He said it's been a few years since the last bear trapping conducted by the state in Prince William, but that there have been several bear sightings since then.

Grauer explained that the bears follow streams and wooded paths, which is how they end up in places closer to Lake Ridge, as happened most recently. When that happens, the department sets out a trailer and a six-foot deep trapped covered with a screen-like object serving as a trapped door of sorts. He emphasized that bears will climb up structures to reach what they want to eat, so the department sets up bait over the doors.

When the bears go for the bait, they fall into the trailer below, but without risking death or puncture-wound injuries associated with classic bear traps. Grauer said that the department's advice to people is simply not to leave anything out that would attract bears, such as food left in open garbage containers.

As for less-threatening animals, "The landowners have to take care of the problems themselves."

Doing so can be done with calls to private-sector critter control companies, lists of which both Animal Control and Game and Inland Fishers can supply to area residents.

"We are trying to encourage people to live with Mother Nature," Kauffmann said.