WINNIPEG – Farmers in the Swan River valley have a new sales pitch for their hay. They ruefully call it elk-certified.
Bill Barker knows too well that elk will eat only the best. “They’ll nose through the whole stack, and when they come to the good (bales), that’s where they’ll stop.”
He figured damages from elk have cost him more than $2,000 per year for the past 15 years. And he and his neighbors are fed up.
“We’re just getting our backs up and saying we’re not going to run our farms according to the elk,” Barker said.
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The herds are getting bigger and more tame every year. One herd marauding around the valley has about 200 head. Barker said there are several bands that number between 70 and 100.
This summer, a neighbor videotaped a herd of 111 camped out in Barker’s hay field. “He stood on the back of his half-ton and his wife drove. They’re driving around within 100 feet or less of this herd, and they’re laying there, chewing their cuds, and they’re picking and pawing, just like a herd of cattle.”
The Manitoba Crop Insurance Corporation will compensate farmers for some damages, but Barker said it’s often hard to collect. Many farmers don’t bother to go through the hassle.
Nevertheless, he uses crop insurance figures as a gauge of the problem. Twenty years ago, big-game damage in Manitoba totaled $26,000. Ten years ago, it was $280,000. And last year, farmers were paid $409,000, one-third of which went to the Swan River area.
An average of 12 motorists per week claim wildlife damages at the local auto insurance office, Barker said.
“We have been recommending for years that the elk that are out on the farmland be harvested and work done to encourage them to stay in (the parks). We’ve just been ignored. They haven’t listened to our recommendations at all.”
Granted a discharge
But recently, one of Barker’s neighbors found a sympathetic ear in provincial court. Don Gade was given an absolute discharge after pleading guilty to hunting illegally on his property. The discharge means he will have no criminal record.
After working with natural resources officers to try to deter elk from his hay fields, Gade shot an elk in May, even though he did not have a licence. The carcass, which he left in a field, scared other elk away.
Barker said farmers were encouraged by the ruling and have been putting the pressure on the natural resources department to get elk populations down. More than 250 farmers signed a petition and were to meet with government officials Jan. 9.
Farmers want the government to give them the right to hunt elk on their land immediately, to increase the number that can be legally killed and the length of the hunting season for the next few years and to improve habitat in nearby provincial forests. Because the parks have had no serious fires in 35 years, vegetation is mature and elk stray outside to eat.
