Saskatchewan will again roll out a rebate program to help farmers and rural municipalities rid themselves of what the province has now officially declared a pest.
The provincial Gopher Control Rebate program, which provided rebates of 50 per cent to producers and RMs on the cost of gopher control products in the fall of 2008 and in 2009, will continue this year, the province said Tuesday.
The province hasn’t yet given a time frame for the 2010 program in which products must be purchased or used, nor a deadline by which to submit receipts for the rebate. The 2009 program required receipts to be submitted by Jan. 29 this year.
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The program extension comes as the province declares gophers, a.k.a. Richardson ground squirrels, as a pest under its Pest Control Act.
The declaration grants RMs the option, through municipal bylaws, to enforce prevention and control measures.
The province on Tuesday said gophers’ new status follows a request from the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) at its midterm convention in November.
“Gophers can cause extensive damage to crop and pasture land, costing producers significant dollars,” said SARM president David Marit, a councillor from the southern RM of Willow Bunch, hailing the province’s plans in its release.
Gophers are a problem especially in Saskatchewan’s south and west, and most severely in areas experiencing dry conditions, the province said.
RMs in the province have already been granted an extension on the emergency-use registration of strychnine to poison gophers. Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) in January extended that registration to July 31 this year.
As of late January, 203 RMs in the province were eligible to distribute strychnine to their farmers and ranchers.
Other RMs can apply to distribute strychnine by sending a letter to the provincial ag ministry, indicating producers in an RM have had “significant” crop and/or forage loss due to gophers.
