---
id: scenarios/alberta-ground-squirrels-and-strychnine
about:
  label: 'Ground squirrels, strychnine and Alberta''s grasslands'
  description: >-
    Canada banned strychnine for Richardson's ground squirrels over the risk to
    burrowing owls and other wildlife; Alberta pushed back, and an emergency use
    is now allowed to 2027. Which control keeps crops and predators both whole?
  tags:
    - ground squirrels
    - gophers
    - pesticides
    - Alberta
    - burrowing owl
scenario:
  place: Prairie and parkland farmland of Alberta and Saskatchewan
  since: '2020'
  scale: bioregion
domains:
  - food
  - ecology
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: Richardson’s ground squirrel control (Government of Alberta)
      url: 'https://www.alberta.ca/richardsons-ground-squirrel-control'
    - title: >-
        Alberta government calls for strychnine ban reversal to fight
        'destructive force' of gophers (CBC News, 4 July 2025)
      url: 'https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/1.7575688'
    - title: >-
        Update on Emergency Use Strychnine for Richardson's Ground Squirrel
        Control (Rocky View County)
      url: >-
        https://www.rockyview.ca/news-and-events/news/update-emergency-use-strychnine-richardsons-ground-squirrel-control
  created: '2026-10-23'
  reviewed: '2026-10-23'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
Richardson's ground squirrels, called gophers on the Prairies, live across Alberta's prairie and parkland.[^1,2] They eat and trample crops, and their burrows break equipment and injure livestock; the Alberta government puts the annual risk to hay and native pasture above $800 million.[^1,2] They are also a main food of hawks, owls, badgers, foxes and coyotes.[^1] Strychnine was long the farmers' poison of choice, used for this only in Alberta and Saskatchewan.[^2] In 2020 Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency decided to phase it out for ground squirrels, citing risks to animals that eat poisoned carcasses, including burrowing owls and swift foxes; the phase-out took effect in 2023, and all uses of strychnine were cancelled in 2024.[^2] Alberta's premier and two ministers asked Ottawa in June 2025 to reverse the decision.[^2] The federal regulator then approved an emergency use of 2% liquid strychnine from 30 March 2026 to 1 November 2027, limited to trained, eligible farmers.[^1,3] Rocky View County reported that manufacture and distribution were delayed and supply would be short.[^3]

## Who needs an answer

- Health Canada's pest regulator, deciding whether the emergency use should end in 2027 or continue.
- Alberta's agriculture ministry and the counties that hand out the product to eligible farmers.
- Farmers and ranchers choosing between poison, trapping, shooting, fumigants and encouraging predators.
- Those responsible for burrowing owls and swift foxes, the species at risk the regulator named.

## The domains it chains

Ground squirrel numbers, breeding and hibernation; crop and pasture losses; hawks, owls, badgers and foxes that eat the squirrels and can be poisoned by them; tall grass and field edges that shelter predators; pesticide law, training and supply.

## What a twin should let people try

- Control mixes: how do squirrel numbers and crop losses respond to poison alone, predators alone, or both used at different times of year?
- Secondary poisoning: given how far owls and hawks hunt, how many are exposed under different rules on carcass collection and treatment areas?
- Predators as control: how many raptor nesting platforms would it take to hold squirrel numbers down on a given farm?

## Where to start

The Alberta government page sets out the squirrel's life cycle: one litter of 6 to 8 a year and hibernation of more than 210 days.[^1] It also gives an integrated control plan with spring surveys, record keeping, raptor platforms and kestrel boxes; a hawk pair takes 300 to 500 squirrels a season.[^1] Species sightings across the province are on [iNaturalist](/data-sources/inaturalist/).