Just as farmers finally get permission to use a long-banned but
effective poison for gopher control, they are going to have trouble
getting enough to do the job.
Liquid strychnine is in short supply throughout the world.
“It’s been kind of a bad situation. Now’s the perfect time to be out
poisoning and we’re not able to get the poison,” said Rod Foggin, a
Cardston, Alta., agricultural fieldman.
Last year Foggin sold eight pallets of strychnine, or more than 13,000,
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250 millilitre bottles, to help control the exploding population of
Richardson’s ground squirrels, commonly called gophers.
This year he ordered five pallets and received one.
It’s a common scenario across Alberta and Saskatchewan this year.
In Saskatchewan, 170 rural municipalities requested liquid strychnine
to be distributed by their pest control officers, said Cameron Wilk,
Saskatchewan’s pest management specialist. Staff in those
municipalities ordered 2,536 24-bottle cases and received 220.
Tim Dietzler, an agricultural fieldman in the Municipal District of
Rockyview in Alberta, ordered 50, 24-bottle cases and received 15 cases.
“It was very effective while it lasted,” Dietzler said.
Last year was the first time Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory
Agency granted emergency registration for liquid strychnine to control
gophers. The liquid strychnine was under tight control by the
municipalities’ agriculture fieldmen.
Farmers who brought in a pail of oats to be mixed with the liquid
strychnine were given detailed instructions on how to use the poison.
The land locations where the poisoned oats were dribbled into gopher
holes were noted and a farmer satisfaction sheet had to be filled out.
The PMRA’s Richard Aucoin said the emergency registration was granted
again this year because of a combination of good gopher control and
strict control of the supplies.
“Those that did use it were very happy with it,” said Foggin of the 165
ratepayers who used the poison in his municipality last year. Other
farmers didn’t use it last year because they felt it was too late in
the season to get good control.
“The fields where they’ve used it, they feel there was a reduction.
They feel they’ve done some good.”
However, Foggin said gophers’ transient nature can cause problems. The
females chase the males from the burrows after breeding. They then move
into vacant holes, often moving back into the fields where gophers were
poisoned the previous year.
Jon Hood, agricultural fieldman with the County of Forty Mile, said
every farmer who used strychnine last year in his county was pleased
with the control.
“Is it working? Yes. They’re seeing marked improvement, but the problem
with it was we were so over run with them because we didn’t do anything
for years because nothing worked.”
Because of the short supply, Hood is limiting farmers to three pails of
the oat and strychnine mixture a day. He won’t mix the product on cold,
wet days when he doesn’t think farmers would put out the mixture.
“I stop mixing when the weather turns cold to ensure there is no waste
and the mixture is fresh.”
