'Your stomach is in your heart': toxic plants killing cattle in B.C. Rockies
When consumed in large quantity, Larkspur plants are lethal to cattle
Rancher Hugh McLuckie strides onto Crown pasture land at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
He bends down and points out a cattle killer.
"You're looking at a mature Larkspur plant," McLuckie says.
"There was a flower that's turned into seed pods and they've all exploded and are on the ground somewhere."
This spring, Larkspur and a second toxic, flowering plant called Death Camas have killed a half dozen of McLuckie's purebred cattle on Crown range land between the Rockies and the Purcell mountains. Crown grazing land is used by ranchers who turn cattle out to feed on public lands, often in spring.
McLuckie's family has ranched here for almost a century, yet he's never seen anything like it.
"We went out one morning and checked cows and everything seemed fine, the next morning we went out and found three dead cows.
"It happened that fast," he said.
McLuckie said three more of his cows succumbed soon after — a difficult loss financially since he runs a cow-calf operation and these mature, pure bred cows would have produced calves for years.
He said it's also hard on ranchers psychologically when otherwise healthy cattle drop dead where they graze.
"Your stomach is in your heart all the time wondering what you are going to see over the next rise," he said.
Native, but deadly
Larkspur and Death Camas are native to this part of southern B.C. and have little effect on wildlife or domestic goats and sheep.
But when consumed in a large quantity, the plants are lethal to cattle.
"In conjunction with the Death Camas, there was Larkspur, which is historically in this country it's here and there in spots," McLuckie said.
"But this year it was absolutely solid no matter where you looked. Almost overnight the Larkspur and the Death Camas seemed to spring up out of the ground."
McLuckie said his neighbour, who is also a rancher, lost five cows right around the same time.
"He had just moved his cows into a pasture north and west of us, and within two days he found five dead cows," he said.
Thriving and toxic
Faye Street with the Kootenay Livestock Association said they've never had a problem like this with Larkspur or Death Camas in B.C.
Street thinks the long, cool spring coupled with lingering snow may have resulted in ideal conditions for the toxic plants to thrive.
She said when entire pastures are covered in them, there's little a rancher can do.
"Spraying is difficult on Crown range, so it's really a tough situation. But boy it hits our industry right where it hurts — in the pocket book."
The Kootenay Livestock Association and ranchers themselves are worried that climate change could make an explosion of toxic plants like these the new normal in southern B.C.
"That's my fear, when you've got so many plants out there this year, they are going to be putting out seeds and if we get another spring like this next year, that is the assumption, it is going to be twice as bad," said Street.
The association has provided area ranchers with information about Death Camas and Larkspur, and are consulting researchers in the western United States, where these two plants kill cattle every year.