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Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

CA SK: Ravens can be killed without permits; wolves targeted too

By Braedon Clark
Journal Staff Writer

Derek Denham has been ranching in the Weekes area, east of Porcupine Plain, for 20 years. With forests surrounding his land, the threat of wolves attacking his cattle has always been real, but that threat has become a real and expensive problem over the past two or three years, reaching a level that is nearly a crisis to him.

“It’s never been like this,” Denham said. “I’ve lost cattle to wolves before but never in these numbers.”

Denham wouldn’t elaborate on how many cattle he’s lost or how much it’s cost him, other than to say it was much more than $25,000, but he did say over 100 wolves had been killed in the past two years.

It’s become such a problem in the area that the provincial government is amending its wildlife regulations to make it easier for landowners to kill problem wolves as part of a two-year pilot project in the Weekes area. The species will now be designated as a big game animal, which will allow hunters to harvest a quota of wolves in problem areas. There will not be a general wolf hunting season and hunting will only be considered after other control methods have proved unsuccessful.

“We don’t see this as the first tool,” said Chuck Lees, manager of the Ministry of Environment’s wildlife unit. “We don’t want to encourage the wholesale slaughter of wolves. This is a tool we can use once we’ve demonstrated that trapping has failed to solve the problem.”

Up until now, landowners were only able to shoot wolves if they were attacking livestock or causing other problems on property. Managing the wolf population was left primarily to trappers.

“Up to this point we couldn’t allow hunters to go in and shoot wolves,” Lees said. “There was no legal mechanism to do so.”

There is now, but these changes come after what Denham said has been two years of looking for a solution. For him, it’s too little, too late.

“You can’t take a hit of one third of your income and keep going,” Denham said, adding that he knows some ranchers who have given up because they’ve lost so much. “I asked for help from the Ministry of the Environment two years ago and we still don’t even know when they’re going to open up the season. It’s not easy to hunt wolves, it’s not like hunting deer or elk. They see you before you see them.”

Denham said the problem is that numbers of the wolves’ prey species, elk and deer, are way down, leaving the predators with no option other than livestock. Lees said the white-tailed deer population has fallen in recent years, but couldn’t say if that’s what is causing the increased livestock predation in Weekes.

Denham also resents the perception that wolves need to be protected at all costs. It’s an idea that he thinks comes from the type of people who have never seen a wolf in their lives.

“Don’t you call those people tree-huggers?” he asked with no small measure of sarcasm. “These wolves are coming into people’s yards. They’re not scared. Those guys in the cities don’t have a clue what real life is like out here.”

Denham said local conservation officers have been helpful in getting him permits to protect his property and livestock, but doesn’t see an end to the problem unless deer and elk return to the area or trapping wolves becomes a more attractive proposition. Trappers can get up to $250 for a wolf hide, but Denham said there are only a handful in the Weekes area, far too few to manage the wolf population.

The current trapping season runs from Oct. 15 to March 15. The proposed hunting season would run sometime between Aug. 1 and March 31, according to Lees, though the precise dates won’t be known until more consultations with local landowners and conservation officers are finished.

Another change in the regulations is that landowners will now be allowed to kill ravens without a permit. Farmers and rural leaders have argued that they are destroying grain bags and in some cases attacking young cattle.

“These amendments will remove the permitting requirement and add ravens to the list of species that may be killed by a landowner, occupant or designate in order to protect their property or livestock,” Environment Minister Ken Cheveldayoff said in a news release.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) has been advocating for a change in the raven policy for at least two years. Farmers were being put in a tough position if they found ravens attacking their livestock, as killing them without a permit was illegal.

“Instead of making people break the law, let’s change the law so it works better for farmers.” That’s how Judy Harwood, SARM’s director of Division 5, which includes Humboldt, summarized the issue.

“Ravens can be a very nasty animal, and it’s easy to see where farmers have had issues with them,” Harwood said.

The new policy comes amid a re-population of much of Saskatchewan’s agricultural areas by ravens, lessening concerns that the population was in any danger.

“It’s a difficult balancing act that got to the point where it was weighted too far one way,” Harwood said.

Of course, the wolves are the highlight of these new regulations, and as the snow continues to melt it’s almost time for calving season. Denham isn’t looking forward to what he sees as almost inevitable attacks.

“It will be another summer of waiting for it to happen,” he said. “Calving starts next week. The cows are out on the grass and it’s probably going to cost me a lot of money.”

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