AUSTIN ANDERSON
GOPHER ADC Between working long hours in forestry, low fur prices and not owning my own registered trapline on public land, I thought working as a nuisance wildlife control operator would be a good opportunity to extend my season, and maybe even result in more land access permissions. I figured I would be tasked with a few skunks and a raccoon or two, maybe a beaver job for the highway department if I was really lucky. I filled out the application and paid the fee. Time would only tell if I would be approved or not. After a few months had passed, I received an email from the province stating that my application had been approved. I was ready to offer my services. The terms and stipulations were strict on my permit, but I wasted no time in getting some advertisements out. I advertised my services on a couple local community and farming pages on social media and waited for the calls to roll in. There were a few requests for ground squirrel trapping and a call for a skunk I never could catch (pretty sure it had moved on weeks before). Just as fur trapping season was starting to ramp up, I received a call from an environmental management consultant company. The management company was retained by the Province of British Columbia to oversee and monitor a mine remediation site. The old-timers were not too careful about containing mine waste or reclaiming mines after the ore ran dry, so there are many mine remediation projects in my area. Turned out the problem was not a furbearing species, but it did pertain to furbearer conservation. Northern pocket gophers were tunneling and creating mounds in the topsoil that capped a remediated mine site. The concerns were groundwater contamination, invasive plants taking root in disturbed soils and furbearers and avian 62