B.C. farmers asked to register animal locations ahead of fire season

Santana Dreaver · CBC News

· Posted: May 09, 2025 8:04 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

Ranchers and farmers are being urged to registry the determination of their livestock by British Columbia's Agriculture Ministry, aft this year's occurrence play got disconnected to an aboriginal commencement successful immoderate areas of the province. 

The livestock registry is called Premises ID and is expected to guarantee close accusation astir the determination of livestock erstwhile exigency responders request that information.

The ministry says accelerated entree to close information gives archetypal responders their champion accidental of occurrence during an exigency response.

It says registering for Premises ID is mandatory successful B.C. but is some escaped and confidential. The programme archetypal began arsenic voluntary, but became mandatory successful 2022. 

British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and Prince Edward Island each person mandatory Premises ID.

The ministry says determination are much than 10,000 ranchers and farmers presently registered.

Kevin Boon, the wide manager of the B.C. Cattlemen's Association,  calls the instrumentality a "cornerstone" of connection and co-ordination for "livestock payment and movement."

"As we attack different wildfire season, it is important that we usage what we person learned from the erstwhile years of occurrence events," Boon said in a statement.

The B.C. Wildfire Service says determination are much than 40 progressive wildfires burning crossed B.C., astir of which are located successful the northeast portion of the province.

It says 81 per cent of the fires are human-caused. Seven of the fires were burning retired of power arsenic of Thursday morning.

The B.C. River Forecast Centre says a operation of a debased snowpack, aboriginal snowmelt and forecasts of lukewarm upwind are pointing toward an elevated hazard of drought in the province.

Boon says that the cultivation manufacture is trying to guarantee that they are represented successful exigency cognition centres,  to assistance usher the cultivation assemblage during emergencies.

Trevor Newton, a cattle and poultry husbandman successful the Lower Mainland, says that successful the beginning, when Premises ID was astir to become mandatory, helium was unclear astir what its intent was.

"Over time, it became evident that whenever there's immoderate benignant of emergency, it truly tin assistance to person everybody's livestock locations."

"Let's say, for example, if you look astatine the avian influenza that's happened recently, the authorities request to cognize wherever each the antithetic locations are for poultry successful bid to effort to incorporate the problem, right?" 

Newton says that Premises ID is conscionable 1 portion of the exigency preparedness puzzle, adding that the cultivation manufacture works with antithetic authorities to effort to minimize the harm caused by disasters, whether they beryllium fires oregon avian influenza. 

"The Ministry of Agriculture is exceptionally bully astatine helping producers and helping the industry, truthful we person nary occupation moving with them."