Mountain View County’s agricultural services board (ASB) will be making an application in support of projects aimed at helping area producers deal with issues surrounding carcass composting.
The application will be sent to the Canadian Agricultural Partnership Risk Mitigation Program.
“Mountain View BearSmart has proposed partnering with Mountain View County to create two to three on-farm carcass composting demonstration projects,” administration said in a briefing note to the board.
“Mountain View BearSmart has been interested in implementing a ground-up carcass composting project in Mountain View County since 2014; modeling the numerous successes documented in southern Alberta and Montana in the last 15 years.”
A grant is available through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership Risk Mitigation Program under animal health biosecurity, members heard.
“The intent of the project would be to provide technical information presenting on the on-farm demonstration projects and carcass composting best management practices at the 2020 Mountain View County and MD of Bighorn predator workshop to aid livestock producers in establishing carcass composting sites to address predation threats from wildlife, outbreaks of infectious disease and for routine carcass disposal,” the note states.
In setting up the project, Dr. Tim Reuter, livestock research scientist, and Dr. Kim Stanford, beef research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, as well as Chiara Feder, Wildlife biologist with Alberta Environment and Parks have or will have to be consulted, members heard.
“Issues with improper disposal include odour, nuisance, scavengers, water contamination, zoonotic disease outbreaks or soil contamination. Mountain View County also has many predators within our boundary (including) grizzly, black bear, cougar, coyote and wolf.
“With improper carcass disposal it could be an attractant for many of these species. Issues related to disposing of livestock carcasses have increased after BSE. There have been resolutions (at ASB provincial level) passed to address this issue, most recently the 2019 resolution to fund deadstock on-farm pickup.”
