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<\/p>\n\u201cWe also asked for the reinstatement of strychnine to manage Richardson\u2019s ground squirrels,\u201d Huber said. \u201cThey\u2019re not just a nuisance, they\u2019re a plague on our crops. And before we even got home from Ottawa, the federal government verbally committed to reviewing its use.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
While commitment is still informing many municipal leaders, they see it as the first progress since the ban took effect.<\/p>\n
For Hazelwood Reeve James Husband, the damage from gophers is already adding up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve faced extensive crop and pasture damage,\u201d Husband said. \u201cSince strychnine was banned, the problem\u2019s only grown. The new options don\u2019t work; the old product, used right, was extremely effective.<\/p>\n
Husband says farmers want Ottawa to allow more potent formulations, not the diluted version that replaced it years ago.<\/p>\n
Further south, Val Marie reeve and farmer Larry Grant described the ripple effects gophers cause across the Prairies, from crop loss to machinery damage caused by badgers drawn to burrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cGophers are a destructive pest,\u201d Grant said. \u201cThey eat crops, they eat grass, and when you get badgers going after them, they can wreck equipment. The most reliable and safest way to control them was strychnine; now we don\u2019t have a product that really works.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant says gophers thrive in drought-prone areas, particularly in southwestern Saskatchewan, and the cost of repairs and re-seeding continues to rise.<\/p>\n
Still, some municipal leaders aren\u2019t convinced strychnine should return. John Hilger, council member for the RM of Clinworth, says other products can work if used correctly, without harming natural predators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s totally necessary to bring back strychnine,\u201d Hilger said. \u201cThe new products can work if you put them out in time, and they don\u2019t hurt the predators.<\/p>\n
Hilger\u2019s view reflects a minority at the convention but highlights the ongoing debate over environmental risks linked to the poison, which also kills birds and mammals that prey on rodents.<\/p>\n
Also speaking at SARM\u2019s convention, Sameer Thawer, operations lead for Ecopest Inc. and president of Canadian Pest Management Association, told delegates that rodent control can\u2019t rely solely on chemicals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in the pest world, they don\u2019t live in ours,\u201d Thawer said. \u201cYou can\u2019t fix a rodent problem with chemistry, but you can fix it by managing rodents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thawer said regulators in Canada and the U.S. are reviewing rodenticides nationwide, which could lead to tighter safety rules and the reclassification of certain products. He urged municipalities to adopt an integrated rodent management plan built on three pillars: education, elimination, and control.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll never live in a world without pests,\u201d Thawer said. \u201cThe point is to manage them sustainably, through prevention, training and responsible control.\u201d<\/p>\n
SARM says it\u2019s still waiting for formal confirmation from the federal government, but calls Ottawa\u2019s verbal commitment an encouraging sign.<\/p>\n
by Jacob Bamhour – CKOM News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe also asked for the reinstatement of strychnine to manage Richardson\u2019s ground squirrels,\u201d Huber said. \u201cThey\u2019re not just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-271158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}