Brent Punga, owner of AgroMax in Regina, said the raw materials for the product have to be shipped from India.

Once they arrive, the company will begin making the product it discontinued several years ago after the federal government ruled it was too toxic to non-target wildlife and caused an inhumane death.

WHY IT MATTERS: Strychnine to control gophers was phased out in Canada starting in 2020 toward a complete ban by 2024. Burgeoning populations and considerable damage to crops and pastures, however, led the two provinces to request an emergency-use registration last fall.

Health Canada announced March 30 it had approved a revised application from the two provinces after initially denying their request for emergency use registration.

It is in effect in parts of each jurisdiction until November 2027, but producers and rural municipalities will have to wait until the poison is available.

Numerous farm organizations had also called for its reinstatement.

Alberta agriculture minister R.J. Sigurdson told the House of Commons agriculture committee that damages in the last three years had increased from $80 million to $800 million.

“This is becoming a disaster in Alberta,” he said earlier in March.

Some restrictions apply

The reinstatement comes with restrictions, including a narrower window in which strychnine can be applied and measures to protect species at risk.

Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister David Marit said for 2026, the product can be used between July 15 and Sept. 1.

In 2027, application can be done between March 1 and June 15 before plants green up, and again between July 15 and Sept. 1.

The species-at-risk measures include increased monitoring, carcass collection and disposal requirements, and enhanced mandatory training. More details on these are still to come.

Saskatchewan is currently developing a strychnine stewardship program and expects training to be available in late spring.

Seven Saskatchewan crop districts in the southwest, southeast, south-central and northwest will have access, based on Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. claims data and the presence of species at risk.

In Alberta, most of the grain-growing region is included.

Both ministers said program details are still in development.

“We are working to procure supply and fully implement the agreement as soon as possible, and we will continue to work closely with farmers and ranchers across the province in the coming days to share more information,” Sigurdson said.

Marit said producers in that province have been clear they face challenges managing gophers with the other products available to them.

Reaction, so far

Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president Bill Huber said the emergency registration was “a significant win for our members.”

“SARM will continue to work with governments and producers to ensure this tool is used responsibly and effectively,” he said.

Others thanked the provincial government for continuing to push producers’ concerns. Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association president Jeff Yorga called it a “common sense, made-in-Saskatchewan solution.”

Many noted the escalating damage and negative economic impacts since strychnine was eliminated.

SaskOats chair Elwood White said the population has increased sharply in some regions since 2023.

“This revised emergency use registration shows we can use strychnine safely while still protecting wildlife,” said SaskBarley chair Cody Glenn.

Grain Growers of Canada said it is only a temporary measure, and grain farmers need consistent access to effective pest management tools.

Not all were happy, though. Some comments on Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe’s Facebook page pointed out that strychnine puts pets and other animals at risk.

Animal Justice said it was disappointed and called the decision “an unscientific reversal of (the federal government’s) own earlier findings that the poison poses unacceptable risks to animals and the environment.”

In a letter, it and several other organizations said strychnine causes horrific pain and suffering for animals that can last for 24 hours.

The Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation and SARM announced prior to the recent decision, as they also did last year, that landowners experiencing problems with gophers could contact the SWF. The organization would then connect landowners with experienced SWF members for gopher control.

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Health Canada, which oversees the federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), announced Monday evening it has authorized a “time-limited and controlled” emergency-use registration for the rodent poison for those two provinces, running until November 2027.

WHY IT MATTERS: Other pest controls are available for use against gophers but farmers find strychnine both more effective and easier to use.

The new decision follows the federal government’s cancellations of all registered uses of strychnine in recent years, and a joint application for the product’s emergency use filed by the two provinces’ agriculture ministries last October.

PMRA had rejected that joint application in February, saying its proposals “did not provide sufficient means to address the risks of concern identified in the re-evaluation that led to strychnine’s cancellation.”

The earlier cancellations had been based on an updated environmental risk assessment, which had found no “practical risk-reduction measures to protect non-target animals” if they fed on strychnine-poisoned pest or predator animal carcasses or directly on poisoned gopher bait.

But…

However, Health Canada said Monday, the two provinces last week filed a revised joint emergency-use request which includes “additional restrictions and mitigations … to lower the environmental risk to an acceptable level.”

The “significant” added measures in the new plan include a “reduced geographical scope” and “revised product stewardship program,” among others, Health Canada said.

Further details on the new measures weren’t immediately available Monday night.

Since strychnine’s uses were cancelled, farmers and ranchers have been raising concerns about on-farm efficacy of other products still registered for use against gophers.

The temporary use of strychnine will help farmers address “multi-million dollars worth of damage” in various crops from a recent spike in populations of gophers, a.k.a. Richardson’s ground squirrels (RGS), Health Canada said Monday.

Health Canada noted the Prairies have been experiencing “abnormally dry conditions, which (affect) the sustainability and quality of farmlands and allowed the population of these gophers to increase significantly.”

Reaction so far

“Saskatchewan producers have been clear about the challenges they face in managing gophers with the limited tools currently available,” provincial Agriculture Minister David Marit said Monday in Health Canada’s release. “We’re pleased to see the emergency-use request granted as a practical opportunity for producers to demonstrate how strychnine can help protect their crops and pastures from continued damage.”

“Alberta’s producers have faced significant challenges managing (gophers) and the loss of this control method was difficult and costly for many in the ag sector,” RJ Sigurdson, Alberta’s minister for agriculture and irrigation, said in the same release.

“I’m confident that, with this effective tool back in the hands of our producers, they will be able to better manage their operations and reduce excessive crop and grassland losses due to the overpopulation of RGS throughout the Prairies.”

“Innovative and collaborative efforts by all levels of government are needed to support the domestic agriculture industry especially during this period of uncertainty,” federal health minister Marjorie Michel and agriculture minister Heath MacDonald said in the same release.

“Our governments’ shared commitment of supporting Canadian farmers, our economy and food security led us to work together to address a compounding threat.”

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“We are extremely disappointed by PMRA’s decision and ask them to reconsider this decision,” David Marit, Saskatchewan’s agriculture minister, said in a news release.

“We need a federal regulatory system that considers economic impacts felt by producers and the realities on the ground.”

Alberta’s Agriculture Minister RJ Sigurdson, in a separate statement, said he’s also “deeply disappointed” in the PMRA’s decision and called on the PMRA to reinstate the product’s use for farmers.

The annual risk to hay and native pastures from RGS runs above $800 million and “the risk of this exploding RGS population is detrimental to farms and ranches across the country,” he said.

On Oct. 1, 2025, Saskatchewan Agriculture partnered with Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation to submit an emergency use request for two per cent liquid strychnine for management of RGS.

The rodent has been growing in population for the last few years and has shown no sign of slowing down.

The submission was a response to concerns from producers and industry about the on-farm efficacy of other registered products for the control of the pest, following the ban of strychnine in March 2023.

Heath MacDonald, federal agriculture minister, had made a verbal promise to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities in October to support any emergency use applications. The PMRA, however, is not under the jurisdiction of the agriculture ministry.

The Saskatchewan government said it had included “robust, science-based and strengthened mitigation measures” in its proposal.

However, the PMRA said the methods used to prove necessity of strychnine were insuffient to mitigate an acceptable level of risk, which prompted the denial of emergency use.

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Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture recently conducted a survey of farmers to better understand where Richardson’s ground squirrels are present, the methods producers use to deal with them, and which approaches are most effective.

The online survey was conducted this past December and January. A total of 174 farmers responded. They were asked questions about:

• type of acres on their farm (cropland, range, pasture, yards) affected by ground squirrels;
• number of acres affected;
• severity of damage; and
• type and effectiveness of control techniques.

James Tansey, pest management specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says the province plans to conduct the survey annually to gather more accurate data.

“We’re hoping for a number of things. First and foremost is to engage with growers and gauge their satisfaction with different products, gauge that over a number of years and get some feedback from them about how we can attenuate control programs and attenuate our extension message.

“I think the ultimate goal is to get some year-to-year weather data where we can get some predictive power and can say, OK, the winter and spring have been this and in the past, this has contributed to gopher populations in these regions … and these regions should be looking at (the problem) a little bit more.”

Richardson’s ground squirrels, often referred to as gophers, can be a major problem for farmers and ranchers when present in high numbers. They can devastate crops such as cereals, hay and alfalfa and pockmark pastureland.

They are a provincially regulated agricultural pest.

“This survey seemed to be, after some discussion, the best bang for our buck. It provides the greatest engagement of growers and good information,” Tansey says.

Respondents indicated damage to cropland, pasture, range and yards. About half indicated high or medium satisfaction with the performance of poison baits. That number increased to about 78 per cent in controlled yard settings.

Shooting also ranked fairly high in terms of satisfaction as a control method.

The survey didn’t provide data on drowning, trapping or vegetation height as control methods since they aren’t practical in crop settings.

However, in smaller settings like yards, keeping vegetation height above 15 centimetres was more commonly used, though satisfaction with this method was relatively low.

Underutilized tool

The survey also showed most farmers aren’t likely to use raptor platforms as a tool to control gopher populations. Such platforms provide nesting sites for predatory birds that feed on gophers.

Tansey says that indicates the need for better communication, because raptors “can inflict some pretty significant damage on ground squirrel populations” and farmers can apply for rebates for the purchase of raptor platforms as well as bird boxes for smaller predatory birds.

Attracting raptors and other predators can also induce more stress on ground squirrels, so they move underground and have less time to damage crops.

“We would certainly like to see an uptake in that and just more of a tolerance of predators like badgers. We know they can cause a lot of damage with their burrows. But if you can tolerate that, they can be an important factor in reducing ground squirrel populations,” says Tansey.

The initial survey didn’t show the correlation between weather patterns and their impact on ground squirrel populations.

Conditions were relatively uniform in areas where ground squirrels were reported, in terms of temperature, precipitation and drought index.

“I was hoping for a little more smoking-gun evidence from a weather perspective, but this is only one year’s data. I think if we get multiple years (of) data on this, then we should get some predictive power.”

Tansey says he was pleased that responses came from throughout the province, from northern growing regions to all three borders in the south.

He was also happy with the number of responses from farmers who didn’t report a problem with ground squirrels, because that provides more objective data.

Alternatives

This spring will be the first time in several years that liquid strychnine will not be available for use in grain-based poisons to kill ground squirrels. Deregistration by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency went into effect March 4, 2023, after a three-year phase-out period.

Saskatchewan Agriculture, in collaboration with Alberta Agriculture, conducted a series of trials in 2022 and 2023 to assess the effectiveness and non-target safety of alternative products. Tansey says some of the most promising are zinc phosphide ready-to-use baits such as Burrow Oat Bait and ZP Rodent Oat Bait AG.

“We found that the two zinc phosphide products we tested work well and were statistically similar in their effect as strychnine and we’ve seen a real uptake of it. It’s actually a little bit less expensive than strychnine,” he says.

Zinc phosphide breaks down into phosphine gas after a gopher dies, which means there is less residue than with some other poisons.

Tansey says several anti-coagulant products also appear to be effective. He cautions that users should understand that multiple applications are required, which can boost product and labour costs.

Aluminum phosphide is another option, but it can be dangerous to handle and requires training. Tansey suggests those interested in using it should hire a professional applicator.

Forecast

Persistent drought conditions in parts of the Prairies are thought to be one of the primary reasons for high ground squirrel populations in recent years.

Tansey says evidence indicates that cool, wet conditions can contribute to bacterial and fungal infections in animals. That can lead to depressed populations in some species, including ground squirrels.

Future surveys may confirm that and provide more evidence on the impact of weather on populations.

The results of this year’s survey were made available in late April on the provincial government’s Richardson’s ground squirrel control page.

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Persistent drought conditions have contributed to high ground squirrel populations in some parts of the Prairies in recent years.

“I would say the last four years were horrible,” says Christine Hoffman, chief administrative officer for the Rural Municipality of Maple Creek in Saskatchewan.

“They will eat just about everything in their path. I know gophers enjoy all seed when farmers are seeding in the spring, but they really hit corn hard as they seem to really enjoy that. They will actually dig out each seed kernel,” she adds.

“If there is anything left to grow, it is very patchy and that, in turn, causes weed issues and, obviously, poor crop production.”

Shawn Kramer, who operates a cattle ranch and is also a deputy reeve in Maple Creek, maintains ground squirrels can cause a lot of issues for ranchers and farmers alike.

“They make a mess and because of all of the holes, you’ve got cattle coming up lame. They can also wreck hay land. On some of our hay land, they ate the alfalfa down to where it’s gone completely,” says Kramer.

“If you’ve got a nice crop, something like four-feet-high wheat, you can’t really get out into the middle of a big field to control them. You’ll be combining or swathing and then you come to a spot where there’s just nothing because the gophers have eaten it down completely,” he adds.

“In our area, this is getting to be about six years of drought now, so the crops or the hay haven’t been great to begin with. A few acres may not seem like a lot, but when you’re not getting much on production anyway and then you’re losing it to gopher damage, it’s a tough battle.”

James Tansey, the provincial insect and vertebrate pest management specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says ground squirrels can damage canola, cereals and hay as well as pasture.

“They’ll go into the crop and raid it, directly consuming the plant material,” he says. “Their burrowing also can be very extensive, especially if populations are large, and that can have a negative impact on equipment as well as livestock.”

Tansey says there are a couple of reasons why ground squirrel numbers are up in Saskatchewan. One is an abundance of green stuff for them to feed on when they started emerging from their burrows after winter.

Tansey says insects must also affect ground squirrel populations. Grasshoppers are an important food source and there were lots of them around in 2022 and this year as well.

“We had a bit of a cool, wet start to things this spring. I think what that did was really bring up the growth of green feed for the animals,” Tansey says. “The (plants) came up looking pretty healthy and the (ground squirrels) had a lot to eat.”

Poison bait

Tansey notes producers frequently use poison bait to control ground squirrels early in the season, but when there is a large amount of green vegetation around, it can make them less effective.

“If the poison baits are put down while there is green feed and the animals have something to choose from, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re not going to go for the baits. They are going to go for the green feed instead. They develop a bit of bait shyness if they have choices,” Tansey says.

“You will get some efficacy with continued use of poison during summer, but don’t expect complete knockdown or expect great efficacy,” he adds. “Our recommendation is always to put down poison bait in holes or in bait stations before the green-up. But, of course, the green-up came pretty fast this year.”

Tansey says mid-March to the end of April, before crop emergence and when there are fewer green plants, is generally the best time to place ground squirrel bait.

Kramer maintains tempting ground squirrels with poison bait traps just after the snow disappears from fields is ideal because that’s when they’re the hungriest. Missing that window of opportunity with bait traps could create problems down the road.

“Once you’ve kind of lost control in the spring and the gophers are everywhere, it makes it pretty hard to get them under control,” says Kramer.

For many years, liquid strychnine has been the primary poison used in grain-based traps for killing ground squirrels in Western Canada. A strychnine ban by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) that went into effect April 1 means that’s no longer an option for Prairie farmers and ranchers.

“We used to use strychnine when it was available and that worked the best,” says Kramer. “Once we lost strychnine, it made it a lot more difficult for us.”

Tansey says many farmers and ranchers were heavily reliant on strychnine, with some rural municipalities in Saskatchewan distributing it to growers as part of an integrated pest management (IPM) program offered by the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM).

The Saskatchewan Agriculture Ministry, in collaboration with SARM, has developed a new ground squirrel control program. SARM is administering the program. Details are available on its website.

There are other options for controlling ground squirrel populations apart from strychnine — everything from chemical alternatives to building perches for raptors’ nests near farm fields.

Rodenticide options

Other rodenticides for killing ground squirrels include zinc phosphide products, which are relatively low risk to non-target animals and birds.

“I know people who were trying the zinc phosphide bait early in the season. I heard of some successes, but it’s relatively new. We haven’t had a lot of feedback,” says Hoffman.

Anticoagulants such as chlorophacinone and diphacinone, which cause ground squirrels to die from internal bleeding after bait is eaten, are also used in poison baits.

Research has shown that anticoagulants are not effective if the surrounding crop stand is more than 40 per cent alfalfa, except when there is little green growth visible. That’s because legumes like alfalfa contain higher levels of vitamin K, which is the antidote to chlorophacinone.

Aluminum phosphide used as a fumigant in ground squirrel holes is another chemical option for control. It can be hazardous and is a restricted product requiring a pesticide applicator’s licence to purchase and apply as well as a documented treatment plan prior to use.

“There are several products available with the active ingredient aluminum phosphide,” says Tansey.

“Where that becomes a little more problematic is the documentation that’s associated with its application and some of the restrictions and training associated with its use, whereas the ready-to-use products containing zinc phosphide are very much just open a bag and either use it at a bait station or pour it down the hole.

“Aluminum phosphide also reacts strongly with water, including atmospheric water, where zinc phosphide needs a weak acidic solution, like a gopher’s gut, to break down and become very toxic,” he adds.

RoCon is a poison-free rodenticide developed by a pair of Alberta ranchers in the 1990s. The product is injected as a biodegradable foam in ground squirrel burrows and works by suffocating the rodents. Unlike baits, RoCon is not dependent on the feeding habits of ground squirrels and is effective as long as they are active in their burrows, according to the manufacturer.

A list of available products registered for ground squirrel control can be found on SARM’s website.

Strychnine alternatives

Following the PMRA’s decision to deregister strychnine, the agriculture ministries in Saskatchewan and Alberta started developing data on alternative products to control ground squirrels.

Two sister studies in the RM of Maple Creek and the Municipal District of Willow Creek, Alta., were conducted in 2022 and 2023 to compare the efficacy and economics of strychnine with these four products:

• Burrow Oat Bait (zinc phosphide)
• ZP Rodent Oat Bait AG (zinc phosphide)
• Rozol RTU Field Rodent Bait (chlorophacinone)
• Ramik Green Rodent Control Bait (diphacinone)

As a result of the study, Tansey says, the Saskatchewan and Alberta governments are recommending Burrow Oat Bait as an alternative to strychnine for controlling Richardson’s ground squirrels in the Prairies because of its efficacy and cost.

The study found no statistical difference in efficacy between Burrow Oat Bait and strychnine in 2022 and 2023. ZP Rodent Oat Bait AG performed well in the Saskatchewan sites in 2022, but results were more variable with this product in both the Alberta and Saskatchewan sites in 2023.

At $4.54 per acre, Burrow Oat Bait cost less than strychnine ($13 per acre) in 2022. ZP Rodent Oat Bait AG came in at $8.80 per acre in 2022. Tansey says the 2023 economic analysis is still pending but he notes prices have gone up for most rodenticide products.

The two anticoagulants in the study were found to be less effective than strychnine. Because of the initial purchase price and the need for multiple applications, the cost came in at $30 per acre for both products (two applications of Rozol and three applications of Ramik Green) at 2022 prices, more than twice the cost per acre of strychnine.

Non-chemical controls

Trapping and shooting have been used to control ground squirrel populations in the Prairies, with varying success. Because of the labour and costs involved, these options may be best suited for smaller areas with high ground squirrel populations.

“I have a couple of friends who come out on the weekends and shoot gophers for us,” says Kramer. “This seems to be the best thing we can do.”

Tansey says shooting is more common than trapping as a control method in Saskatchewan, but results are mixed.

“We’ve heard reports of ammunition shortages and of growers frustrated with not getting the control that they would like,” he says.

“Of course, if you do reduce a local population, you’ve left an unattended burrow system, and it’s entirely possible for another group of gophers to come in there and take advantage of that.”

Tansey says there’s continued focus on developing a long-term, sustainable management system, utilizing IPM practices that include rodenticides and non-chemical measures to keep gopher infestations below economic threshold levels (the point where pest damage exceeds the cost of the management options).

“I think to rely on any one specific IPM component is not going to get the efficacy that you’re hoping for. With integrated pest management, we’re looking for the incorporation of biological, cultural and chemical controls. All of these tools combined can help control Richardson’s ground squirrels.”

Cultural controls include habitat modification, which can reduce ground squirrel preference for an area and enable foxes, badgers, weasels and coyotes to have better success finding them.

Studies have shown that grazing practices that favour taller grass stands may reduce ground squirrel numbers because they prefer short grasses for better visibility for predator threats.

To reduce ground squirrel pressure, one technique is to maintain vegetation on pastures or forage at a height greater than 15 centimetres. Another strategy is to leave vegetation tall and ungrazed in headland areas and along fencelines so it can act as habitat for ground squirrel predators.

Tolerance is key

Ground squirrel predation can also be encouraged by erecting platforms and nest boxes for raptors near ground squirrel colonies. This is particularly useful in areas with few trees where suitable nesting sites may be in short supply.

“There are several species of raptorial bird that prey heavily on Richardson’s ground squirrels,” says Tansey, “most notably ferruginous hawks, which rely on them almost entirely for their fledglings.”

Tansey stresses tolerance for ground squirrel predators can be key to keeping the rodent numbers under control.

“Coyotes, foxes, weasels and badgers can do a lot of damage to a gopher population — in particular, badgers. I realize that badgers can do a lot of damage in fields and their burrows can be quite large, but they can have a profound effect on ground squirrel populations,” he says.

Tansey notes monitoring ground squirrel populations, and managing them when necessary, can help prevent crop and land damage and the associated economic losses when numbers get too high.

“I should temper that, though, with the need for some tolerance of Richardson’s ground squirrels. We don’t have any hope of ever eradicating them, nor do we want to,” he says.

“They are important components of grassland ecosystem functioning, and we need a certain level of tolerance for that. Unless a population is damaging, I think growers can step back a little bit.”

“I certainly appreciate some of the anxiety that growers are feeling, especially given the warm, dry conditions and the way this seems to be favouring gopher populations. I just think continued vigilance and the application of efficacious products where warranted is the best strategy.”

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