{"id":329016,"date":"2025-12-06T21:27:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T21:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329016\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T21:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T21:27:05","slug":"effect-of-short-term-antlerless-elk-hunt-remain-to-be-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329016\/","title":{"rendered":"Effect of short-term antlerless elk hunt remain to be seen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAllowing access to land is key, and when landowners open their gates to hunters, it helps manage wildlife impacts on crops and forage. That\u2019s a win for producers and hunters alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

But the limited opportunity hunt led to significant criticism online. The Saskatchewan Turn in Poachers<\/a> (SASKTIP) line reported several instances of elk left to waste in various places. <\/p>\n

In one instance, Spiritwood conservation officers were patrolling near Rabbit Lake and located two cow elk left behind. Officers believe the responsible person(s) were shooting into a herd of elk and were potentially unaware that they had shot and killed multiple animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo surprise with the free-for-all, open elk cull season. I\u2019m sure this is only a small portion of the waste left behind by this cow cull,\u201d commented one person. <\/p>\n

\u201cAre you surprised? I\u2019m not, lucky no one is dead out there. There\u2019s guys firing into running herds when there are 500 people on that section,\u201d wrote another on the Sasktip Facebook page. <\/a><\/p>\n

Todd Smith, executive director of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, said his office received numerous concerns from citizens in the province about trespassing on private land, unethical hunting and waste of game or poaching cases. He said he fielded about 20 complaints a day. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of competition for access to land and resource access. It was compounded by the placement of the season, which was right in the middle of the whitetail rifle season, which is a very popular big game season within the province,\u201d Smith said. \u201cSo, it would have added to the number of people on the landscape at the time, so it was kind of inevitable that you would run into some situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith also noted an uptick in the number of people who purchased the $30 license who weren\u2019t \u2018up to speed or knowledgable\u2019 about what was required to legally hunt within the province. <\/p>\n

While he understands the need to balance wildlife and agricultural producers needs, he said wildlife management strategies need to be backed by science.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to approach it with set quotas and limits and make sure that the targets that we set are achievable and realizable.\u201d<\/p>\n

paNOW attempted to find out how many non-compliance violations were issued during the elk cull, but the information was not available by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

Violations in 2024<\/p>\n

A press release earlier in the week indicated that in 2024, the TIPP line received 1,534 reports about illegal hunting, fishing and timber harvesting, as well as environmental offences such as illegal dumping or burning. <\/p>\n

\u201cPublic tips continue to play an important role in helping our conservation officers respond to illegal activity and protect our natural resources,\u201d Corrections, Policing and Public Safety Minister Tim McLeod, K.C. said. <\/p>\n

Many investigations that started with a TIPP call ended with convictions. In 2024, conservation officers issued 3,089 written warnings and laid 1,833 charges. <\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

panews@pattisonmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAllowing access to land is key, and when landowners open their gates to hunters, it helps manage wildlife…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-329016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329016","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=329016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}