Norman Maze felt strongly enough about his gopher-killing invention that he stopped his combine and flew to Ottawa to meet with bureaucrats during three ideal pea harvesting days.
“I wouldn’t have missed this. This has been two years to get them to meet us,” said Maze. He flew from his home in Unity, Sask., to try and convince officials at Health Canada’s Pest Management Review Agency of the importance of the Gophinator to prairie farmers.
The Gophinator is the invention of Norman, his brother Gary and father Keith, who hope their invention will help other farmers rid their fields of Richardson’s ground squirrels, more commonly called gophers.
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The key ingredient in the Gophinator is anhydrous ammonia, one of the most common fertilizers on the Prairies. Using a small tank and a flexible hose device, anhydrous is shot down each gopher hole.
But anhydrous has also become the inventors’ Achilles heel.
The Maze family was told that until anhydrous is assigned a pest control product number, the Gophinator is an illegal device.
To be given the number would require years of pest control data and thousands of research dollars. The former fertilizer dealers believe enough research has already been done on anhydrous over the years by fertilizer companies.
“We’re of the opinion we should not have to go through the full screening process if it’s not a new compound.
“We didn’t think we should be made to do toxicology studies on anhydrous ammonia,” said Norman. “It’s a commonly used fertilizer.”
In Ottawa, the family was given little hope they could speed the process. Any approval wouldn’t take place this year or next year, they were told.
“That was a little disheartening.”
Within two weeks, pest agency officials will compile a list of everything they require and an estimated cost for approval.
The price tag may stop the invention from going any further, said Maze. They were originally told it would cost at least $113,000.
They will try to bypass the system by applying for emergency registration, like liquid strychnine was recently granted, to help control the exploding gopher population in parts of the Prairies.
In order to be granted emergency registration, a third party, like a farm group, must sponsor the product, to help convince Ottawa of the need for it.
Before production was stalled, the family had built and sold 20 Gophinators to farmers in Canada and the United States who saw the device in farm newspapers and at Regina’s Farm Progress Show.
In 1998 and 1999, the Gophinator was in the show’s new invention’s building. It was during the second year that an official from Agriculture Canada appeared and shut them down after a concern was voiced by the local humane society.
