Photo: The Canadian Press

Cattle graze near Cranbrook in 2022 as part of a program led by the B.C. Cattlemen's Association to reduce the wildfire risk near communities.

In a province plagued by wildfires each summer, the quest for tree management is ongoing and one man says cattle shouldn’t be ruled out.

The point was raised in the latest Greater Vernon Advisory Committee meeting when a BC Wildfire Service representative from the Vernon Zone showed comparison pictures of Kal Lake Park with many more trees today than in the 1950s.

BCWS said the area would historically see fires every five to 40 years, but that hasn’t happened in recent years – causing the tree growth.

Ted Osborne is the former Coldstream Ranch manager and now the agricultural voice on GVAC, he says fires play an important role in managing trees, but pointed to another big wildfire fuel management system which was removed from the area: cattle.

“From the late 1880s on, that area was owned by Coldstream Ranch, and it had rotational grazing on it, so that kept the shrubs and so on down for that period of time,” said Osborne.

Osborne explained that BC Parks purchased Kal Lake Park from the ranch in the mid-70s.

Cattle continued to graze there up until 1985, but then the province decided to stop grazing since the area was a Class A park.

“After that, nature has its way. The grasses and shrubs and trees, being fir and ponderosa pine…thickened up and grew up and so on,” said Osborne.

Should cattle come back?

Osborne says cattle, or other grazing animals like sheep, are a fuel-management option when the conditions are right, for example an area without houses or infrastructure built up.

Bringing the animals back to Kal Lake Park is no longer an option. With the amount of brush and tree growth that’s occurred in the area, the grazing wouldn’t have a big impact.

But Osborne says there are other areas that could be helped from cattle grazing.

“There's a fair amount of research going on with the provincial government looking at ways to mitigate fire and cattle is one of them. Cheap as well,” said Osborne.

“Anything that will keep the fragile fuels that cause fire to start, or cause the fire to move can be useful, but conditions have to be right for it to make good use and fit with how humans are using the area as well.”

Castanet has reached out to the Ministry of Forests to see if this option is being explored.

In 2019 the province put up $500,000 to help launch a pilot project from the B.C. Cattlemen's Association to use cattle grazing as a tool to help with fuel management.

-with files from The Canadian Press

Photo: BCWS

Kal Lake Park in the 1950s

Photo: BCWS

Kal Lake Park today