KAMLOOPS – With a shocking lack of licences issued five years into BC’s groundwater licensing regime, the BC Cattlemen’s Association has sent the province a six-point action plan to forestall disaster next year. The province says it’s not going to be giving non-domestic groundwater users any more time to apply for a groundwater licence and …
BCCA
Canada at “negligible risk” for BSE
Canada now holds negligible risk status for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), delegates to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) general session decided May 27. The shift to the lowest level of risk for transmission of BSE makes Canada eligible for expanded access to foreign markets for more beef products, previously limited by BSE-era restrictions. …
Producers beef up support for Island cattle
COURTENAY – Vancouver Island beef producers have banded together to establish a regional affiliate of the BC Cattlemen’s Association. Vancouver Island producers have been able to join the association in the past as individual members, but the new Vancouver Island Cattlemen’s Association will give the local industry official standing alongside 17 other regional organizations. “We …
No right to roam
VANCOUVER – The BC Court of Appeal has sided with Douglas Lake Cattle Co., overturning an earlier ruling granting recreational fishers access to Minnie and Stoney Lakes. The new judgment also firmly rejects claims of any public right to cross private lands to access Crown property in BC, often termed “right to roam.” This case …
Ranchers plead with province to address elk issue
KAMLOOPS – Ranchers are asking the province to tighten management of elk populations as the ungulates become an increasing nuisance to agriculture. “We believe that elk populations are growing in certain regions,” says Elaine Stovin, assistant general manager with the BC Cattlemen’s Association. Vanderhoof rancher and wildlife biologist Olin Albertson with the Nechako Regional Cattlemen’s …
BC Beef set to launch
WESTWOLD – A made-in-BC beef brand is finally within sight after five years of work on the part of ranchers. “We will be signing a lease for October 1 with the KML federal processing plant just west of Falkland, and at that point we will have control of the plant to go in and start …