Request to reinstate strychnine for gopher control
Farmers seek emergency approval for strychnine to manage damaging Richardson’s ground squirrels.
July 24, 2025
key points from this story:
- Richardson’s ground squirrels damage farmland
- Strychnine previously used to control pests
- Federal ban on strychnine since March 2024
- APAS and SARM want ban lifted
- Concerns about poison affecting other wildlife
- Debate over pest control versus animal protection
Richardson’s ground squirrels are fecund little critters, and they have a tendency to dig their burrows as populations grow in the most inconvenient places – of farmer fields and pastures. That presents problems from dirt mounds going into machinery, busted and bent gear if it bounced into a large burrow, or livestock injuries from an ill-placed hoof. So, it’s not surprising many farmers would like the rodents gone.
Typically through the years that has meant putting out strychnine and letting the ground squirrels consume the poison and die. It’s not a particularly nice thought, a population of little critters dying of poison ingestion, but it is a relatively effective / low cost way of dealing with the pests which the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan suggests is causing some $9 million in farm damage in a year.
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