A Saskatchewan bison farm is asking the court to force the provincial agricultural operations review board to hear its complaint about a nearby sheep operation.
RJ Game Farm, which has about 1,400 bison near Fairlight, Sask., says Teresa and Joanna Walker’s 300 sheep pose a threat of malignant catarrhal fever.
Sheep are carriers of the viral disease that is fatal in bison.
The Walkers in November bought land about one kilometre from RJ Game Farm, where they intend to raise sheep. Teresa Walker has said she doesn’t plan to run weaned sheep, which present the most risk, near the bison.
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But Robert and Rebecca Johnson, who operate RJ Game Farm with her parents Ryan and Roberta Clark, asked the review board to hear their case and consider whether this is a normally accepted agricultural practice and what action could be taken.
The two parties tried mediation in December, but that failed. At the same time, the review board was grappling with whether it could hear the matter.
In a Dec. 10, 2010, letter to the review board, Timothy Stodalka, the lawyer representing RJ Game Farm, urged a quick decision.
“We respectfully submit that it would be an error to interpret s. 13(2) of the Agricultural Operations Act as requiring that our client wait till the bison start dying from malignant catarrhal fever when the expert evidence we have provided to you indicates that it is not a question of if our client’s bison will die from MCF but it is simply a matter of when they start dying,” said the letter.
That section of the act states that a “person who is aggrieved by a disturbance arising from an agricultural operation” can ask the board to determine if that disturbance is a result of a normally accepted practice and, if not, what action could be taken.
But a month later the board said the game farm did not have standing because the matter did not meet the board’s mandate.
A court case is scheduled for March 3. Stodalka is expected to ask a judge to quash the agricultural review board’s decision and order it to hold hearings.
