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Farm groups may have cheered the announcement that strychnine use will be temporarily permitted in order to control gophers in Saskatchewan and Alberta, but one farmer who’s been left out says he’s worried for the future.
Strychnine was banned as a method of controlling numbers of Richardson’s ground squirrels (commonly known as gophers) in 2024, but an emergency use request by Saskatchewan and Alberta was granted on March 30, and will remain in effect until 2027.
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But the emergency approval won’t help Darren Gosling, a farmer and councillor in the Rural Municipality of Lake Johnston southwest of Moose Jaw, near Mossbank. The area where strychnine use is approved covers roughly seven crop districts in the province, but not the RM of Lake Johnston.
“We’ve been already out using gopher bait and poison that we are allowed to use,” he said in an interview on Monday.
“We’ve been out since the 15th of March. I’ve set up some traps in and around my buildings, in the yard foundations, because the gophers are digging holes under fuel tanks and grain bins and getting into our sheds.”
He said he’s caught about a dozen of the pests so far.
“Out in the fields, they’re coming out,” Gosling added. “They’re digging up new holes and they’re looking for food.”
Gosling said the areas where strychnine use was approved were determined based on insurance data, but he said that method is flawed.
A map showing the areas in Saskatchewan where strychnine use has been approved. (Government of Saskatchewan)
“I know they say they took data from crop insurance claims, but the crop insurance numbers that they’re using are not 100 per cent accurate,” Gosling said.
He said only about half of his total claim for gopher damage was granted because in 2024 because crop insurance only covered losses of at least five acres. Because of those issues, he said he didn’t file a claim for 2025.
“Just because your RM doesn’t have a high crop insurance claim rate, doesn’t mean you don’t have a problem,” Gosling said.
The Saskatchewan government said in addition to crop insurance claims, information on species at risk was also considered when determining the areas where strychnine use is approved.
In Alberta, strychnine will be allowed in a much larger area of the province, and Gosling said he believes having “blanket” coverage for two years would allow producers a chance to get gopher numbers back under control.
Gosling said he’s also aware of the concerns surrounding strychnine use, including the risks posed to other wildlife.
“Anything that you use to control an animal has its shared risk,” he said, “but if it’s used responsibly, it’s one of our most effective controls. And my concern is, if we don’t get these pests under control, it’s only a matter of time that crop insurance says, ‘No, we don’t qualify claims for gophers anymore,’ and so the producer always takes the hit.”
Gosling said he hopes the plan will be altered to allow strychnine use across a wider area as he contemplates the damage the rodents have been causing to his crops.
“After the crop is gone, the weeds come in. There’s no way of getting to these weed patches without destroying more of your crop to try and spray out the weeds,” he explained.
“So weeds go to seed, then they blow across your field, so they create all sorts of problems down the line.”
