Home on the range: Pictou County man takes on buffalo herd

One Pictou County, N.S. man has found a home where the buffalo roam, and it’s right in his own backyard.

Marinus Verhagen has turned part of his property in Linacy, N.S. into a wooded pasture for seven buffalo after running into an old friend with a larger herd in northern New Brunswick.

“I asked him if he was willing to sell some and he said he would and he’d take them down for me and so it kind of went from there, I guess,” says Verhagen.

The animals are kept inside a fence but are free to roam Verhagen’s property.

“If I did build a shelter for them, they wouldn’t go in it, but they will go in the woods to kind of stay out of the wind a little bit sometimes,” he says.

Doug Fraser, who helps Verhagen with the animals, says managing them hasn’t been too difficult.

“Just feed them in the mornings and that’s about all I do. If there’s something wrong with the fence, I’ll just go around and check the fence,” says Fraser.

He says the buffalo can be skittish and tend to move away whenever people approach, but that’s not always the case.

“At breeding season, it’s a whole different story,” says Fraser. “You shouldn’t even go on the outside of the fence.”

Verhagen hopes to have 25 buffalo within the next five or six years and eventually plans to start harvesting the animals for food.

“Some people have been asking me, once I start butchering, if they could try some,” he says. “I’m not really in it for the money or anything, just for something to do.”

There are seven in the herd for now, but that number will be growing soon. Verhagen expects three of the females will be giving birth before the end of May.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Dan MacIntosh