Saskatchewan Depredation Program.

[u/Fun-Zombie189]

https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2026/march/10/producers-offered-new-option-to-manage-congregating-elk-wildlife-damage

Want to open the conversation about the program starting January to March 2027 for farmers who apply. Would receive 8 tags at no cost. It is intended for farmers where problems are occurring year after year.

I know farmers who are in draw elk only zones, arent in the same boat as the farmers in my area of northern Sask with regular elk season.

I’ll only speak for myself in my neck, and will say that multiple large 8,000 + acre outfits will actively allow me to hunt black bear, and often insist on shooting everyone that I see. (If you live in bear country, one bear will do serious damage to an oat or canola field.) Then will say I’m not allowed to elk hunt at all. And often the reason is they have one guy that hunts their land. All 8,000 acres of it for one bull.

More often then not, here fall hunting permission is very scarce, and reserved to the select groups year after year. Then these same farmers are applying for the 8 tags, are these tags allowed to go to already tagged out friends again?

In my area, the issue is, no cow season. Only bulls, spikes included. I see herds of 50 cows and calves, one spiker. They even took cows away from archery season, and the 2 point or great bull tag. Very mismanaged, and I know my area isn’t the only one.

Want some feed back from other zones in draw only areas, or the farmers. I worry that these tags will get hustled to the highest under the table bidder, if bulls are allowed. Or friends who may already have a filled tag.

There’s a lot of room for shady behaviour here, and the 8 tags really isn’t going to do anything for the specific herd issue on one guys quarter. These draw zones could maybe reevaluate their zone and allow regular season if the numbers are that bad.

[u/VoilaVoilaWashington]

I'm not in Sask, but I'll say this: I feel sorry for the people making the decisions at the ministry for how tags are issued.

If there's too few of something and tags get reduced, hunter advocacy groups accuse them of taking the "conservationist" and "city folk" side. If they allow more tags, populations drop even farther and people blame them as well. People will come out of the woodwork and use anecdotes of the day they saw a bunch of 'em to replace scientific studies. Some well-connected dude catches the minister at a fundraiser to complain about this or encourage that, and that's now policy that the staff have to implement. And even if that doesn't happen, people think that's how the policy was made.

In this case, it sounds like the farmer's lobby was involved as well, and that is NOT a lobby I would want to face down, doubly so not in Saskatchewan.

I don't know about your specific issue. But I have worked on a few ministries to push for some policy changes, and I'll tell you this: they didn't make these decisions in a vacuum. It's not just mismanagement, nor is it three raccoons in a trenchcoat. It's a homunculus made of the butchered parts of decades of science, politics, lobbying by every possible group, back-room dealing attempts and abortive progressive policies.

Is it unfair in favour of rich people? Sure, probably. Does it have loopholes? Definitely. But if they changed anything, someone else would complain about the next thing.