The Saskatchewan SPCA is against an emergency registration for liquid strychnine to control a growing gopher population in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Health Canada's Pesticides Regulatory Directorate, formerly known as the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, approved its use in late-March with multiple conditions attached to ensure safe use on the population of Richardson's ground squirrels.
"We definitely understand that farmers do need to control these populations, and we sympathize with them, but we also need to be aware of the risks that putting poison in the environment can have, especially as secondary poisoning is a big concern." said Mikayla Basset, Education Coordinator with the SPCA.
"Secondary poisoning is when an animal eats a baited ground squirrel. A ground squirrel that has been poisoned dies and then gets eaten by a predator, and that predator then gets poisoned and dies itself. So the spread through the food web is very concerning for us and can cause very damaging ecological risks."
Strychnine can cause severe muscle spasms, seizures, and respiratory failure within a short period of time, leading to significant suffering, says the SPCA in a news release.
They cite a 2020 re-valuation from the former PMRA that concluded "the environmental risks of strychnine use for Richardson’s ground squirrel control were unacceptable, particularly due to the threat posed to non-target wildlife, including species at risk. Research has shown that poisoned carcasses can remain accessible on the surface and that mitigation measures do not reliably prevent exposure to other animals."
The SPCA also say gophers play a key role in the prairie ecosystem, primarily being a key food source for a variety of natural predators, along with "contributing to soil aeration, water infiltration," and nutrient cycling.
Basset says there are alternative methods farmers could use to control Richardson's ground squirrels, such as "disrupting burrows by plowing or cultivating, and using traps or shooting if you have a license in an area that allows for it".
"So poisons are maybe a little bit faster, but they cause a lot of harm to the environment, and those environmental risks are really unacceptable." added Basset.
Provincial Agriculture Minister David Marit says strychnine is on its way and hopes to have it available to producers by June or July of this year.
Details on how the Strychnine Stewardship Program, to be administered by the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), are still being worked on, Marit said.
He is concerned that the time allotted for its use – this year and next year – may not be enough time to fully control the gophers, as some areas have had more difficulty with them compared to others.
"I've seen it firsthand where they have virtually taken a whole quarter section of canola off, and it's not anything anybody wants to see. Hopefully we can find the right means to keep the gophers under control and still have the use of strychnine." said Marit.
Despite that, Marit says the provincial government will continue to advocate for an extension for as long as its needed.
"We'll always go through it until we find a resolve, which is I think the right thing is to be able to use strychnine within the means and the rules around it. And as I said earlier, the farmers and ranchers in this province have adopted those rules and have used it that way. So, I'm hopeful we'll get through this next 18 months and see where we go from there." he said.
The west, south, and east-central regions are allowed to use strychnine, which covers 15 crop districts and about 208 R.M.s.
Strychnine was previously banned in 2024.
(With files from Neil Billinger, CJWW)
