The B.C. Cattlemen’s Association expects to have lost more livestock to predators last yeat than they did in the year previous.
General Manager Kevin Boon says while they wait for final numbers to come in the suspicion is that last summer’s historic wildfire season played a role.
“I think that we will actually see a fairly consistent loss on the predators. In fact they may go up a little bit and part of that, it is hard to say this would be guess work, but I think some of those increased losses could be due to fire. When we saw the fires take place we saw the wolves moving out and the predators moving out into other areas”
He says ranchers suffered about three million dollars in livestock losses in 2016.