Beingessner is an agriculture columnist who farms near Truax, Sask.
Hay was pretty scarce in my part of southern Saskatchewan last fall.
Then came a cold winter that went on forever. Hay supplies were stretched to the limit, and many farmers fed extra grain and purchased hay.
This spring looks better, with lots of rain, following a winter with more snow than we’ve seen for a while. Now, if it would just warm up, the grass might even start to grow in earnest.
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As I was seeding a field tonight, I noticed the great potential in a low-lying hay field that provides one of my neighbours with a good deal of his winter feed.
As dusk approached, I also saw the herd of white-tailed deer that began to swarm out of the surrounding chokecherry and saskatoon bushes. Well before the sun set, they covered the field and were spilling out onto my wheat stubble.
It began to look doubtful if there will be any hay there come summer.
Saskatchewan Environment says whitetailed deer populations are near the all-time high for the province. Milder winters and lower hunting pressure mean numbers are still increasing.
My own experience bears this out. In the 40-odd years I’ve hunted around my home, I have never seen so many. It was easy to go out for a half-hour toward evening in late winter and count hundreds of deer without going more than a few miles from our place.
In addition to the white-tails, we have an ample number of mule deer, and moose have even begun to populate this district.
While deer have increased, the number of hunters has gone the other way.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Saskatchewan regularly saw 70,000 to 80,000 hunters take to the field for white-tailed deer. By 2004, this had declined to 30,000.
Only in the last couple of years have the numbers slowly begun to increase. Though it might be tempting to attribute the reduced number of hunters to the fervent anti-hunting segment of the animal rights lobby, it is more likely that the decline in rural population and the increasing age of those who remain have played a larger part.
Burgeoning wildlife numbers, while nice to look at, are creating increasing conflict with farmers and ranchers.
Our herds of deer did some real damage to neighbours’ feed stacks this winter. Coyotes have been pruning our sheep flock with great regularity.
The vast numbers of geese that pass through each fall are just waiting for the late harvest that will eventually, inevitably come.
Vehicle accidents involving deer and larger ungulates cost Saskatchewan taxpayers millions each year. The situation is much the same in Alberta and Manitoba.
Hunting has an important role to play in mitigating this damage, but there is little indication that hunting will increase as a pastime.
One new measure by Saskatchewan’s government is to open up hunting on Sundays, which will begin this fall. If urban hunters can look forward to two days when they can hunt on the weekend, more might return to the sport they abandoned to the pressures of Monday to Friday jobs.
A hopeful sign in our area has been the increasing number of girls taking hunter safety courses. When I was a kid, girls who hunted were scarcer than hen’s teeth. Not any more.
While many of my urban friends simply can’t see the allure in killing animals for sport, it is usually not that simple.
Hunting is a way to spend time with family and learn to appreciate nature.
Hunters generally enjoy wild meat, and sausage making is a family event at our house and many others.
It’s also a way to get some benefit out of these animals that farmers feed for free.
And if you can’t find time yourself to process a deer, many food banks are more than glad for the donation.
