Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation offers to connect landowners with gopher hunters

Darla Ponace · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 27, 2025 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

The Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation (SWF) is offering to link hunters with landowners needing assistance controlling gopher populations.

Darrell Crabbe from SWF said Richardson's crushed squirrels, much commonly known arsenic gophers, tin origin extended harm to crops and livestock.

"Hunting gophers, for generations, has been thing that's been an enactment that has been utilized by thousands of Saskatchewan residents," helium said.

Crabbe said it's often hard for hunters and landowners to link directly, owed to trespass authorities and privateness concerns. SWF wants to facilitate these connections.

Interested landowners are asked to interaction SWF. The organization said successful a quality merchandise that immoderate of its members hunting gophers arsenic portion of this inaugural volition transportation $5-million successful liability coverage.

Crabbe said poisons person been utilized to woody with gophers for galore years.

"Under national jurisdiction, galore of the very, precise effectual poisons are nary longer available," helium said. "So that was surely thing that whitethorn person contributed to the summation successful numbers."

Health Canada banned the usage of strychnine and sodium monofluoroacetate, 2 poisons utilized to power gophers, successful 2024. Earlier this year, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities called for a reversal of the strychnine prohibition to power gopher populations.

Rene Dubreuil is politician of Ituna, Sask., astir 115 kilometres northeast of Regina, but is besides a pest power serviceman for 3 municipalities astir Ituna.

Dubreuil said helium deals with astir rodent problems, including gophers. He said this is the clip of twelvemonth erstwhile the pups are calved and travel retired of their burrows looking for food.

"Anything that's greenish is eaten," helium said. "So you tin spot successful crops and pasture lands, all the vegetation astir the burrows are wholly cleaned disconnected to the ground."

Dubreuil said it's worse successful areas with little moisture.

"What makes the gopher colonisation detonate is the adust weather," helium said. "They look to beryllium capable to past wherever a batch of different animals can't." 

He said hunting unsocial isn't capable to mitigate gopher populations. He mentioned poisons similar Burrow Oat Bait and Rozol Pocket Gopher Bait, but warned to beryllium cautious erstwhile utilizing them. 

"You person to beryllium precise cautious with it that you can't exposure it to immoderate benignant of moisture," helium said. "Moisture is what sets disconnected the sulfur that's successful the bait itself. So they person to beryllium precise cautious to support it successful a adust area. It would beryllium poisonous to quality beings if it ever got wet."