“Today is kind of special to me given that this is the government’s 10th red tape reduction bill since 2019,” said Nally during a press conference held that same day.

“Alberta has reduced red tape by 35 per cent since 2019. We’ve eliminated nearly 220,000 regulatory requirements and completed hundreds of initiatives to reduce red tape. Cumulatively, all this work has generated more than $3 billion in savings for Albertans and Alberta business,” he said.

Bill 10 will make amendments to legislation across four different ministries.

Amendments for the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation would help create new tourism opportunities in rural Alberta and improve the viability of Alberta’s domestic cervid (elk and deer) industries by allowing producers to establish harvest preserves, also known as hunt farms.

RJ Sigurdson, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, said he has been told by the cervid industry that there have been many changes when it comes to domestic production over the last few decades.

“Export opportunities are very limited. Alberta, many decades ago, looked at a diversification plan, moving out into areas to domestically farm cervids,” said Sigurdson.

“What we heard from that industry was that due to limited export opportunities, they were looking at us to be able to consider cervid harvest preserves, to allow that to happen within the province of Alberta, so they have an additional opportunity for revenue. This is critical for their industry at this time when they’re struggling to be successful in that space.”

Sigurdson said cervid farming is a sustainable practice. A lot of the elk are raised in areas where cattle or other livestock cannot be raised.

The cervid industry has approached Sigurdson on multiple occasions and said cervid harvest preserves were necessary to have a sustainable future, he said.

Cervid harvesting is already practiced in Saskatchewan and in other jurisdictions of Canada.

“We see it as a reasonable opportunity to have that same activity here through these cervid harvest preserves. Of course, they’re going to be under strict criteria,” he said.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation will have a say in how harvest preserves are created, and that animals are harvested in the most ethical manner.

Sigurdson said cervid harvest preserves will not result in an increase in chronic wasting disease (CWD) or other diseases. There has been documented cross contact and occasional disease spread between farmed and wild cervids, as well as documented CWD in the wild population.

Sigurdson said the cervid harvest preserves don’t change endemic and non-endemic CWD zones, and the high standards used for testing in domestic cervid populations will be maintained.

“What I will say is under the domestic side, there is a very strict policy that all cervids are tested for CWD at harvest, to ensure we’re monitoring and taking a look at CWD and ensuring to minimize the spread in the province of Alberta,” he said.

Cervid harvest preserves will not change the high standards of animal and foreign animal disease control in the province, he said.

Sigurdson said harvest preserves bring opportunities for tourism and economic growth.

“I would say that from what we’ve seen in other provinces, it does create a tourism aspect to it — a hunting tourism that supports a lot of remote communities that normally don’t see those additional dollars. It does create a lot of potential there. We see opportunities for both cervid harvest preserves and Indigenous communities too,” he said.

Joseph Schow, Minister of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration, said hunters and anglers coming from elsewhere help promote Alberta’s products, and bolster local economics.

People who come to hunt from outside the province buy local products and use tourist accommodations.

“We measure success in terms of visitor spend. Our goal is $25 billion by 2035,” said Schow.

Other components of Bill 10 included changes to Canadian citizenship and public health-care numbers to be included on piece of identification like driver’s licenses. The Fair Registration Practices Act will be amended so first-time applicants who are professionals with international experience have access to working in regulated professions. The All-Seasons Resort Act will streamline year-round, resort-based development on public land and allow private lands to be part of an all-season resort.

The post Cervid harvest preserves to be developed in the province under Bill 10 appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Government of Alberta launched a program this spring that allows ranchers to hunt problem elk. Eligible hunters can shoot cow elk on private property or Crown land, even after the February end to the recreational elk hunting season.

Cole Barten works on a cow/calf operation just south of Cardston, Alberta, and he’s seen the damage elk can cause.

“It was mostly just the destruction of fences and large groups of elk got into one of our stackyards and made a mess of a bunch of hay bales,” he said.

On the ranch where Barten works, animals are fed every day during the winter months.

“We don’t put down swath or do any bale grazing like a lot of producers, so we’re less impacted,” he said.

Barten, who is a delegate for Alberta Beef Producers (ABP), said this was the first year he’s seen elk damage in the three years he’s worked on the ranch.

“This year, we had close to 100 head of elk get into one of our stackyards,” he said. “And every day, we were chasing them out of it. They were breaking fences down because they are a large group of animals, ripping into hay bales and destroying hay bales that were for cows,” he said.

In addition to destroying stackyard fences, the elk destroyed perimeter fences and fences for calving.

“You get 100 elk jumping through that fence, and one of them eventually hits a wire and rips it out, and then the rest kind of just make that hole a little bigger,” he said.

Barten said elk problems vary from operation to operation. One of his neighbours does all the feeding close to their house, and the elk don’t go near the house, he said.

The ranch where Barten works is surrounded by grain land, native grasslands and Police Outpost Provincial Park.

He said it is impossible to pinpoint the monetary damage done by the elk.

“You have to factor in everything, from bales lost to fencing materials to time and labour dealing with it,” Barten said. “And it’s going to vary. For us, it’s thousands of dollars.”

He added the elk can be pests by chasing cows around and push them off feed.

“This one stackyard, where we had our issues, it’s in the middle of the field that we calve in. We had a bunch of newborn calves, and there was a storm, and the elk came and pushed all the calves out of the windbreaks and the shelters,” Barten said.

He’s excited about the problem elk program, also known as the wildlife responder program, because it gives ranchers another tool for dealing with them.

A problem animal can be a particular cow elk that is leading the herd into the stackyard, Barten said.

“She’s in the front, bringing the herd to the stackyard every time,” he said.

Once the elk herd hears a gunshot, and sees that lead cow elk die, they are less likely to come back to the area.

Barten stressed he does not have a problem with elk in general, adding that most people like to see wildlife on their ranches.

“I like having elk around,” he said. “I have young kids, so it’s really cool to go out in the spring and look for antlers getting shed and stuff like that.”

Kaley Segboer-Edge, stewardship lead and Verified Beef Production Plus coordinator for Alberta said the Alberta Beef Producers are following the issue closely.

“We’re following and engaging with government and stakeholders through a couple different ways,” she said.

Segboer-Edge and her team are using digital tools to follow the social media conversations and news.

“We engage actively with partners like the Alberta Conservation Association, Bow Hunters (The Alberta Bowhunters Association), as well as multiple departments within the government, including the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas and the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation,” Segboer-Edge said.

The group also engages with tourism, which is managed through the Ministry of Tourism and Sport.

“Our leadership team is really engaging with those ministries, especially in advocating for beef producers and the issues we are having. We’ve commissioned two major studies that are just kicking off right now,” she said.

One study will cover a jurisdictional scan of the western provinces, as well as some of the northwestern United States, to see how they’ve managed coexistence between ranchers and wildlife, with a focus on ungulates and predators.

ABP is also working with Canfax to understand the financial impact ungulates have on Albertan producers feeding cattle in the winter.

“From our preliminary look, there has been no major quantum research into the scale of the impact and winter feeding is just one piece where the ungulates are impacting producers,” Segboer-Edge said.

Hunting problem elk can also be a benefit to the public.

“It’s one of the major tools that we use for managing problem elk in our elk herds. Beef producers have a long-standing history in working with conservationists and the hunting community to manage our different wildlife populations,” she said.

Research has shown that hunting problem animals who are continuously coming back to the stockpiled feed can help disperse the herd.

“If you talk to any hunter or rancher, elk are a very smart species, so they quickly learn not to habitate those areas and rely on them as a food source,” Segboer-Edge explained.

Ruiping Luo, conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association, said the group isn’t particularly concerned about elk hunting.

“As far as we’re aware, that is sustainable if it’s managed in a way that is not threatening the population or the ecosystem,” she said.

“We are a little bit concerned because we feel that the government has been continuing to push what we understand to be its responsibility to manage these problem animals onto hunters,” Luo said.

Hunters don’t have the same background as wildlife officers, who should be managing these populations or problem animals, she said.

Luo added that the government hasn’t officially defined what counts as a problem animal.

“It’s usually in a conflict situation, although that too is unclear on what is considered a conflict,” she said.

Luo said it’s a controversial topic, but one way to manage elk populations is to allow some predator co-existence. Wolves and cougars can help control elk populations, because they change elk behaviour. If wolves and cougars are in the area, elk tend to spend less time feeding.

“They tend to be more hidden in the trees, because they don’t want to be at the risk of predation. I suppose a different concern we have is that the province recently seems to be going after a lot of these predators, and that might be impacting other organisms, including elk,” she said.

The post Alberta gives green light for problem elk hunting appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Big Game Management Extended Hunt will occur Nov. 1-10 in the RMs of Livingstone, Hazel Dell, Kelvington, Bjorkdale and Leask.

Each of these will have 50 antlerless elk licences available in addition to what was available through the big game draw. The licences are only for Saskatchewan residents.

Environment minister Christine Tell said in a news release that the pilot is intended to help landowners take preventive measures to reduce future conflicts with wildlife. Wildlife damage can be mitigated while ensuring populations of deer and elk stay sustainable, she said.

The criteria for the extended hunt is based on damage reported to the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. and when producers have exhausted all other preventive measures or agree to implement such measures.

The environment ministry and SCIC both regularly hear concerns about wildlife and requests for compensation after feed and crops are damaged.

The pilot was developed in concert with the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation.

At the 2023 SARM convention, the government said it would find more solutions.

“We listen and respond to the needs of our Saskatchewan producers,” said agriculture minister David Marit.

SARM acting president Bill Huber said municipalities were happy with the result.

“We were at the table when this pilot was developed, and we feel it is a good balance for agriculture producers and game management,” he said.

“We also encourage landowners to do their part by allowing responsible hunters to access their property.”

Last year at a meeting of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, attendees heard that the number of hunting licences sold had dropped after new trespass laws requiring permission to be on property were enacted.

The post Saskatchewan pilot hunting program to help with wildlife damage appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“The best defense against [highly pathogenic avian influenza] is having a biosecurity plan in place,” said Mary Keena, NDSU Extension livestock environmental management specialist. “It is your job as an animal owner to create a line of separation between your clean animals and the potential unclean issues that wildlife or visitors may bring.”

The risk of avian flu transmission increases in hunting season due to increased interaction with wild birds, NDSU staff said in an article posted this month. Waterfowl, gulls, terns and shorebirds are the primary carriers of avian influenza A —the strain responsible for deadly outbreaks in poultry flocks and, more recently, milder outbreaks in U.S. dairy herds.

“Infected birds shed bird flu viruses in their saliva, mucous and feces,” said Miranda Meehan, NDSU Extension livestock environmental stewardship specialist. “If you hunt game or wild birds and own domestic poultry or livestock, do not wear hunting clothes or footwear while you are interacting with your poultry or livestock.”

NSDU extension staff recommended the following biosecurity measures:

• Avoid hauling the disease home by changing clothings and footwear before crossing the clean/dirty line to care for animals.
• Avoid driving through areas where waterfowl and other wildlife feces may be. If it cannot be avoided, clean shoes, vehicles and equipment thoroughly.
• Field dress birds where possible.
• Keep dogs away from poultry or livestock if they’ve interacted with waterfowl. Dogs aren’t a high risk to contract the virus, but may transmit bird flu to domestic flocks.
• If visitors are interacting with flocks or herds, find out where they’ve been. Require them to wash hands and wear clean or disinfected clothing and shoes.
• Clean up litter and spilled food around animal housing to reduce attractiveness for wild birds.
• Consider bringing in any free-range guinea fowl and waterfowl.

—Updated Sept. 19. Removes reference to documented cases of dogs spreading bird flu to poultry. 

The post Hunters urged to take biosecurity measures against bird flu appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

While hunters can and do cause problems for farmers and ranchers, many welcome them and the role they play in wildlife management, the association said in a release.

“No matter what perspective you appreciate, we do know both landowners and hunters play vital roles in conservation,” the association said. “Recently, the number of active hunters has been declining, inching us closer to the breakdown of licence-funded conservation. This is a major concern for wildlife managers and conservation organizations across North America because they rely on hunting data and impacts to help guide balanced wildlife population and habitat management decisions.”

One of the factors in the decline in the number of hunters is the challenge they face in finding a location to hunt, it added.

“With the number of agricultural producers declining over the past 20 years, there seems to be more struggle to find a location to hunt and gain landowner trust. Yet, past surveys suggest most landowners are willing to allow some form of hunting access.”

The conservation association said the online survey will help it to both assess the current situation and find practical measures that will benefit both hunters and landowners.

The survey asks questions about the owner’s property, the number of hunting requests received, and factors that are considered when someone asks to hunt on their land.

The survey is open now at albertahunteraccess.com and will run until Feb. 15. Personal info will be kept confidential.

The post How do you view hunting on your farm or ranch? appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The provincial government recently opened a public comment period, running until Jan. 19, on a list of changes it proposes to make to various hunting and trapping regulations between April this year and the end of March 2020.

Among the proposed new rules is a ban on “any part or derivative of a deer, elk, moose or caribou, sourced from outside B.C., to be used for the purpose of hunting or trapping.”

CWD is a member of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) family of diseases such as BSE in cattle, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people.

B.C.’s Wildlife Health Program has monitored for CWD since 2002 and has yet to find an infected animal in the province, the government said, noting CWD has been seen in Alberta and Saskatchewan and is known to be “moving west toward the B.C. border.”

The infectious abnormally-folded proteins, or prions, that cause CWD are present in tissues and “biological materials” from infected cervids, particularly in body fluids such as urine, the B.C. government said in a proposal document.

Urine and other such materials are used to make attractants for use by hunters, and are “frequently” collected from farmed cervids in jurisdictions outside the province, the government said.

The impact of CWD on native cervid populations and the disease’s spread have already led “several” jurisdictions elsewhere to set up bans on such products containing biological material from cervids.

“There is little regulation in the production of these materials, they are usually available without labelled information on their origin and cervid farms in two Canadian provinces and 21 U.S. states are known to be or have been infected by CWD,” the provincial government said.

The province described such attractants as “a potential route of introducing CWD to new jurisdictions, including B.C.”

Evidence suggests CWD prions can pass from animal to animal by direct contact or through contaminated feed, soil, and/or water sources with saliva, urine and/or feces from infected animals.

No evidence has yet shown CWD can affect humans, but the World Health Organization and other such bodies recommend against eating meat or consuming any products from animals known to be infected with any TSE disease.

CWD-infected deer and elk show abnormal behaviour accompanied by progressive weight loss. In later stages, animals with CWD show signs of extreme weight loss, repetitive behaviour, drowsiness, lack of co-ordination, drooping head and ears, drooling and increased drinking and urination.

Conservation officials in Manitoba — another province which has yet to turn up any cases of CWD — urge hunters not to shoot animals that appear to be sick. If a hunter does shoot a deer or elk that appears unhealthy and/or extremely thin, its carcass should not be field dressed. — AGCanada.com Network

The post B.C. to block hunting attractants from out-of-province appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The co-operative, which bought what was then a seven-store chain in 2008, announced Thursday it would start inventory liquidation sales Friday at all 12 of its remaining Wholesale Sports locations in the four western provinces.

“This was an all-inclusive business decision that, while difficult, was made in the best interest of UFA on behalf of our members,” UFA CEO Carol Kitchen said in a release.

The farmer co-operative, which dates back to 1909, today deals in crop inputs and seed, livestock feed, drugs and supplies, farm equipment, bins, farm building construction, construction materials and bulk fuel.

UFA emphasized the parent co-operative is “still showing strong financial results” and the wind-down of Wholesale Sports is “a strategic business decision” following an “extensive review process… which included evaluating numerous options for the Wholesale Sports business.”

“There were numerous external factors that led to this decision including an increasingly competitive environment, the continued shift to online purchases and an overall slowing of consumer discretionary spending as a whole, including the outdoor industry,” Kitchen said Thursday.

The Wholesale Sports chain bills itself as the “largest multi-channel outdoor retailer in Western Canada dedicated to the outdoors,” dealing in hunting, fishing and camping gear and clothing. It includes two stores in Edmonton and one each in Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Prince George, Kamloops, Nanaimo, Langley and Westbank, B.C.

Wholesale Sports in 2016 booked a nine per cent drop in sales, to $102.7 million, and contributed about $900,000 to UFA’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the fiscal year.

The chain last year noted a “very challenging economic and competitive environment,” with reduced consumer spending on “high-ticket purchases” such as guns, archery and optics across the network, though its e-commerce business showed “positive growth” of 21 per cent.

That said, the chain in 2016 also sought to “manage and control expenses” through various means, including the closing of its Regina store at the end of the year.

The chain had also invested in U.S. expansion in 2009, buying 13 stores in the Pacific Northwest, but UFA sold off that part of the business in 2013.

The wind-down of Wholesale Sports, Kitchen said Thursday, “will allow UFA to focus on its core business of agriculture and petroleum.”

The liquidation sales, to be managed by asset management firm Gordon Bros., will run until Dec. 28 or until the stores are cleared of inventory. Pending online sales will be completed, but the chain stopped accepting new online purchases effective Thursday afternoon. — AGCanada.com Network

The post UFA to shut down outdoor outfitter business appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

It’s similar to Canadian bison, deer, or elk ranching and can add a lot of value for producers.

“In South Africa, since 1991, we’ve seen a steady stream of conventional farmers integrating or possibly changing over to wildlife ranching,” Adri Kitshoff-Botha, chief executive officer of Wildlife Ranching South Africa, told a recent meeting of international journalists here.

Many conventional producers have also added a ‘game ranching’ aspect to their operation, raising antelope (the country is home to 45 species) or animals such as giraffe, zebra, hippopotamus, or Cape Buffalo. Raising wildlife has a big future, said Kitshoff-Botha.

“I expect we’ll see more conventional South African farmers integrating with, or possibly changing over to wildlife ranching, as farming becomes more and more difficult, and more and more challenging, which makes it less profitable,” she said during a presentation at Monate Game Lodge.

• Read more: African farms are vastly different but share common bonds
• Read more: There’s a lot to love about Sussex cattle — but try finding any

Wildlife ranching is also a way for producers to explore alternative land use options and use marginal land while contributing to biodiversity and food security.

As part of the conference of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, some participants toured the Monate Game Lodge farm on a mini-safari on the 7,400-acre operation. The game lodge, located in Gauteng Province in the country’s north, has partnered with a breeding operation to conserve wildlife and protect natural areas.

Wildlife ranching — also known as game ranching — has four components: breeding, hunting, conservation, and game products. Private game farms developed in South Africa when a farmer accidentally fenced some waterbuck on his land in the 1960s.

Since then it has flourished.

South Africa now has the same number of game ranches as conventional cattle operations (roughly 12,000 of each) covering 20 million hectares of privately owned land. That’s triple the 6.5 million hectares of natural preserved habitat, which includes all provincial and national reserves operated by the government.

“More wildlife is under private ownership than in government parks,” said Kitshoff-Botha, whose voluntary organization is working with government to foster additional growth of an industry which has (directly and indirectly) created 140,000 jobs.

“We are working closely with our government to add unprotected areas to wildlife ranching. We all know that land doesn’t fall out of the sky. This is vast areas of rural land management, being used for the full value chain.”

The practice of wildlife ranching also increases food security, producing 120,000 to 150,000 tonnes of meat annually. (All of it consumed locally as game meat can’t be exported.)

“There is potential in wildlife ranching in Africa,” said Kitshoff-Botha. “If you consider the population in South Africa that can be supplied with healthy protein, there is such a huge market.”

Wildlife ranchers still have challenges with legislation, but the group is working closely with the federal Department of Agriculture.

Wildlife ranching also offers opportunities for tourism. International and local tourists like to go to see wildlife, and many wildlife operations have lodges or chalets available for rental.

“About 70 per cent of all visitors to South Africa do wildlife-related tourism,” said Kitshoff-Botha.

The tourism aspect of wildlife ranching is a new venture, and the organization doesn’t even have figures on how much revenue it brings in.

The post South African ranchers are ‘game’ for raising wildlife appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Kathryn McGarry, Ontario minister of natural resources and forestry, spoke to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture’s 2016 annual meeting to update farmers on the status of the regulations covering the protection of the Algonquin wolves.

In June, eastern wolves in Ontario were renamed Algonquin wolves and their status was changed to threatened by the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario, an arms-length body that classifies species at risk in Ontario.

The threatened status meant that the wolves had to be protected across Ontario, and the government had 90 days to respond.

The challenge is that the only way to differentiate the Algonquin wolf from coyotes is with a DNA test — which, as McGarry admitted, would be difficult.

“Yes, I know they have big teeth. You can’t ‘Just say give me your mouth and I’ll do a swab,’” she said. “This presented a problem for us.”

The government has since set two years to draft a recovery plan for the Algonquin wolves, she said, with input from groups such as the OFA and scientists.

In the meantime, the hunting of the wolves is restricted in Algonquin Park and in the areas around Killarney Provincial Park, Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands and the Kawartha Highlands Signature Site.

The wolves, and the coyotes that look the same, can still be hunted in areas outside the restricted zone.

There is also an exemption for landowners and farmers in restricted areas who can still protect livestock if there is a health and safety risk.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @JGreig on Twitter.

The post Restricted zone tightens for Algonquin wolf hunting appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Landowners must warn visitors of hazards and ensure the property is safe. If there’s an injury or death, negligence needs to be shown and if the farmer was somehow negligent in communicating a situation on the farm, that can cause a problem.

The act also says landowners are not allowed to charge hunters to use the land for hunting (even a gift of some meat is a type of payment), but can receive some compensation by renting accommodations.

For more of the committee’s findings, see the May 13 and June 17 editions of the Grass Routes newsletter.

The post When visitors come on your land appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.