WINNIPEG – Bill Barker said if the Manitoba government listened to local recommendations for elk management, farmers would not be boycotting an effort to capture elk for ranching.
“We would be grateful to get rid of (the elk),” the Kenville farmer said. “But … they want to keep trapping them for five years and that kind of says on its own that they really don’t want to reduce the numbers a whole lot.”
Barker said landowner groups around Riding Mountain National Park are also supporting the boycott because they’re fed up with inadequate compensation for wildlife damage.
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Bob Carmichael, chief of game and fur management for the province’s natural resources department, said the impasse caught him by surprise.
“I appreciate the point (farmers) are trying to make, it’s just that the farmers and the government have a fundamental difference of opinion on what constitutes fair recompense,” Carmichael said.
Farmers may try lobbying municipalities to change bylaws so any animal damaging property could be impounded. Barker said farmers are also considering going to small claims court seeking damages.
Barker acknowledged the government has made some changes:
- Farmers with problems can get a lethal control permit, allowing them to shoot one elk on their property to scare others.
- A natural resources team is quick to set up intercept feeding stations to lure elk away from farmers’ hay.
- Crop insurance staff are keeping track of fields where elk have pawed up snow to eat alfalfa. If farmers have winterkill on those fields, crop insurance may compensate.
One of Barker’s neighbors keeps hay behind a 2.5 metre-high fence. But elk crashed through a smaller fence that was keeping his cattle in, and ate their feed.
“That kind of damage he’s not getting a nickel for,” Barker said. “So he might as well have let (elk) damage the hay out in the field.”
