200 cattle die at Shamrock Pasture

PFRA pasture managers working with cattle at Wolverine Community Pasture
 (image courtesy of Branimir Gjetvaj)

When a couple of cows die suddenly, the people who own them want to know why. When a couple hundred die, the animal cruelty officers want to know too.

Last week, as we heard in the media, 200 cows and calves died of dehydration and drinking toxic water in the former Shamrock PFRA Community Pasture. The shareholders of the new Shamrock Grazing Corporation are understandably shaken by the event--for the hundreds of thousands of dollars represented in the loss, but also for the suffering their animals went through.

Shareholder representatives (many of whom would be former PFRA patrons) have been quick to defend the contract staff who were responsible for checking on the livestock, and that perspective is to be admired. However, animal cruelty officers are on site interviewing people to see if they can determine if neglect may have led to the tragedy.

What I know about cattle and water management would not eclipse the period at the end of this sentence, but if the only available water evaporated enough to concentrate down to a toxic level of salts during the heat of the last week, then it might be fair to ask if an experienced manager with training and resources at his disposal would have provided the livestock in that field with a safer alternative source of water to avoid such a risk.

I asked a former manager of another PF pasture what he thought of the events at Shamrock. Not wanting to be seen as criticizing current managers, the former manager requested anonymity but said the following:

"This is exactly what I predicted would happen. The new lessees would not pay the pasture manager the salary he expected as they could find someone who would do the job for less. . . . This might be a lesson and a costly one for the producers, that maybe the former managers did have some value in the operation of the pastures. I had some dugouts that were potentially toxic and took measures to ensure that the cattle had other options for potable water. . . . .My experience is if it is bad in the spring it will only get worse, and if it is borderline for toxicity in the spring you had better have an alternative or back up plan, there will be more of this type of nightmares, I am guessing."

Some transitioned federal pastures were able to convince their PFRA manager to make the move and work for the new grazing corporation--often by allowing them to graze their own livestock on the pasture. Shamrock, however, seems to have gone elsewhere to secure a manager. They put the position out for contract tender. Here is the SaskJobs posting they ran just last January. The list of "credentials (certificates, licences, memberships, courses, etc.)" has but one entry: "driver's licence;" however, the job description does mention water management.

None of which incriminates the grazing corporation in the least. If there is anyone to be blamed here, it is the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, for rushing the pastures through a privatization process without providing the kind of support and oversight that would ensure that under new governance the land and cattle will be managed at the same standard the PFRA always provided. 

Instead of leaving the grazing patrons with the financial headroom and the incentives they needed to hire quality managers, the Province is taking as much revenue as they can from the transitioned pastures. It is only from the shareholders own ingenuity and effort that many of the transitioned pastures have been able to find good managers.

However, it is worth recalling that the federal PF managers were recruited, trained, and promoted in a system that not only reduced the incidence of such mishaps; the system included built-in public accountability through a chain of command ending at a minister's office when mistakes did occur or when private or public interests in the use of the land were at stake.

And if the Province is now neglecting to provide that accountability and internal oversight of local management on the private grazing and livestock side of pasture use, what should we expect in the way of accountability and oversight for the management of public interest, such as carbon sequestration, species at risk conservation, and access for Indigenous people's customary use? 

In the new pasture dispensation, instead of the buck stops here, we have the bucks going into the provincial treasury and no one accountable for the proper management of these rare and important public lands. 

healthy wetlands water livestock but provide important habitat on
 public grasslands including community pastures