Pushback from animal rights group as Alberta farms approved for emergency strychnine use

The federal government has reversed a Trudeau-era decision preventing farmers in Alberta and Saskatchewan from using strychnine to kill gophers.

One animal rights group is raising concerns about the “indiscriminate” and “inhumane” effect of strychnine on all animals as the prairies have been approved to use the pesticide on rampant gopher populations.

“It’s a remarkably cruel poison. It triggers violent seizures and muscle spasms, all the while animals remain conscious and often result in death from suffocation or exhaustion,” said Alexandra Pester, a staff lawyer with Calgary-based group Animal Justice on Tuesday.

On Monday, the Government of Canada approved time-limited and controlled emergency use of strychnine in both Alberta and Saskatchewan to address an overwhelming population of gophers, or Richardson ground squirrels, on farms until November 2027.

Alberta agriculture minister RJ Sigurdson said farms across Alberta are facing “exponential” losses – thousands of dollars per farm, he estimated – due to gopher infestations.

“There was infrastructure damage, crop loss, grazing land loss, risk to livestock. It was important that we got this done,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

But Pester says the approval is a clear reversal of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), a Health Canada office responsible for overseeing the Pest Control Products Act.

Strychnine is not regulated for use in Canada and was first denied for use on ground squirrels in 2020 and then again in February 2026 for “unacceptable environmental risks,” according to an information note on the Health Canada website.

The federal government announced Monday that a newer joint submission from the provinces was approved with risk mitigation measures aimed at limiting environmental impacts ahead of the growing season.

Sigurdson said many of the PMRA’s concerns were alleviated by the joint Alberta-Saskatchewan proposal.

“We put training, monitoring and strict enforcement in place. Farmers and ranchers are going to have to obtain it from the municipalities and this is going to be closely monitored and data controlled so that we can prove to the federal government that it’s being safely administered,” he told reporters Tuesday.

Pester said her group was not aware of what limitations the health agency or provinces would put in place, but that strychnine was “indiscriminate” in the animals it kills, quelling not just gophers but any other animal to come into contact with the pesticide.

“The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association has concluded that it is an inhumane method of pest control, so this poison really has no place being used in Canada, and the federal government should be standing firm in the agency’s multiple decisions not to permit strychnine,” she added.

Sigurdson said procuring strychnine was still in early stages and the industry would be updated as the process moves along.

With files from CTV News Regina’s Daniel Reech