Wild boars may soon be a thing of the past if Red Deer County gets its way.
The county recently introduced a motion to create a bylaw to ban the animals from the municipality.
Ray McKinnon is owner of a wild boar operation between Innisfail and Penhold and is not pleased with how the county has approached the matter.
His facility, where he breeds and raises wild boars, has been in operation since last August and now contains about 60 wild boars.
“It started out as a place for our wounded warriors, our veterans from Afghanistan. It's a place for them to partake in the sport of hunting wild boar,” said McKinnon. “We would sponsor a wounded warrior and give them a free hunt.”
McKinnon is part of a group called Hoggin Alberta who used to operate a summer pasture and hunt pen for wild boars near Sundre. Several weeks ago, Mountain View County imposed a ban on wild boars effectively shutting down the hunts, he said.
While there are several other wild board producers in Alberta, the group here and his operation in Red Deer County now appear to be in jeopardy and could see wild boar operations and hunting soon come to an end.
At a county council meeting on June 7, a motion to bring in a bylaw to ban wild boars was passed.
“The fact is Red Deer County has been petitioning the province to ban them for years, going back to 2010 or 2011,” said Cody McIntosh, assistant agricultural services manager with Red Deer County. “They're a pest when they're at large. The province has declared that and we have seen them at large,” he said, noting an incident with wild boars in 2008.
“They fall under the agricultural pest act and they can be disposed of.”
McIntosh said it is important to protect agricultural land in the county.
“We want to address the agricultural concern within our borders,” he said. “We need to protect our agricultural industry in Red Deer County. We take the protection of agriculture very seriously.”
He noted that the county did attend McKinnon's operation earlier this spring and conducted an inspection.
“We know that Alberta Agriculture instituted a minimum containment standard but we feel that's not adequate,” said McIntosh. “There are always opportunities to get around containment.”
McKinnon also noted the inspection at his facility recently and is concerned it will meet the same fate that the group's wild boar pasture did in Mountain View County last month.
“They gave us a little bit of notice and we had to shut it down immediately and remove all stock,” explained McKinnon. “They're a prohibited animal now in Mountain View County -- it cannot be there. The first offence is a $4,000 fine.”
Given the short time frame, he said, they had to harvest every animal out of there.
“That was our big stock. It was very devastating for us,” he said, noting that no one from the county has informed McKinnon of their plans to ban wild boar, nor have they contacted him to discuss the matter.
“Nobody from the county has ever said anything to me. I read that Red Deer County has put in a motion, an application to do the same thing (as Mountain View County), to prohibit wild boar out of Red Deer County,” he said. “My only means was in the newspaper and to this date nobody has said anything yet.”
McKinnon is concerned that the county is trying to shut down the entire Hoggin Alberta group.
“If we can't have this, we're done,” said McKinnon, pointing out how his facility meets provincial requirements for containment and the important safety procedures that are always in place.
“They want a fence that's five feet out of the ground; we're six feet out of the ground. They want it to be 16 inches underground; we're two feet underground. They want posts to be 10 feet apart; we have posts at five feet apart. They want one 12-gauge fence around it; we've got two 12- gauge fences around it,” said McKinnon.
“We went over and above on our own accord to make sure that they could never, ever get out. Any time the gate is open somebody is outside the gate on guard with a firearm. The gate is padlocked at all times and there are safety ladders welded into the fences.”
At this point McKinnon said he isn't sure what the future holds, but it does appear to be a waiting game.
“If I do nothing, they're going to come at me with an order saying that it's prohibited and I have 30 days to eradicate the herd,” said McKinnon. “There's thousand and thousands of dollars worth of stock that I'm not going to have any choice but to just slaughter.”
The process to create the bylaw banning wild boar from the county could take several weeks, noted McIntosh.
