12 - The Review, Weyburn, Saskatchewan, September 12, 2018
Game birds released on farms around southeast region By Greg Nikkel Over 800 new upland game birds were released onto farms throughout the southeast region on Thursday, in advance of the upcoming Bird Doggin’ hunting event hosted at Goodwater. The event organizing committee took delivery of the live birds delivered from the MacFarlane bird farm in Wisconsin, and then distributed them to farmers and land-owners, and committee members took the birds out to various locations to band and release them. The group received 700 cock pheasants and 110 Hungarian partridges altogether, at a cost of $22,000 US (or around $27,000 in Canadian dollars). They were the first group in Saskatchewan to do a release of Hungarian partridges in 2014, and they have been doing annual bird releases since then. In addition to the birds released on Thursday, they will be releasing 275 hen pheasants and 60 more cock pheasants next March. Some of the locations for the bird release included in the Osage area, around Goodwater, Midale, Cedoux, Torquay, Tribune, Bromhead-Neptune, and as far west as the Radville area. Ray Paslawski took birds for release in the Osage area, and Dan Cu-
Watch the birdie …
gnet took 100 pheasants and 10 Hungarian partridges for release in the Weyburn area, such as around Nickle Lake and some north of the city. The Bird Doggin’ hunting event will be held on Saturday, Oct. 13, with a social time the night before. The event’s banquet and weigh-in from the hunting of game birds will take place at the Goodwater Rink, featuring steak and pheasant, with a silent auction and a live band to provide entertainment, the Walker Valley band. The organizers will be providing shuttle buses for those who wish, from Weyburn, Midale, Torquay and area. Hunters were able to preregister online this year, and are coming from throughout Saskatchewan, with a maximum of 200 who can take part in the hunting. They are expecting the evening event will have around 500 people in attendance. Since 2014, the hunting organization has released over 3,700 birds around the southeast, not counting the 810 that were released this year. The release is done in cooperation with the province’s Department of the Environment. In 2017, there were 802 pheasants and 150 Hungarian partridges released, and from the Bird Doggin’ event, there were 150
Releasing a pheasant after banding
Review Photo 4722 — Greg Nikkel
Cam Gammack released a pheasant near Goodwater after a band was placed on its leg on Thursday afternoon. In the background, Lionel Wanner and Jarett Wright prepare to get another pheasant ready for banding as Jarett’s daughter Lilion watched. pheasants, 61 partridges and 37 grouse harvested. In 2016, they released 650 pheasants, including
50 hens, and 50 Hungarian partridges, with a total of 247 pheasants, 96 partridges and 33 grouse har-
vested. All proceeds from the Bird Doggin’ event go towards the release of upland
game birds, which are replenishing the bird populations for current and future generations.
Review Photo 4730 — Greg Nikkel
Jarett Wright held up a pheasant to show his daughter Lilion, just before he released it into the wild on Thursday afternoon near Goodwater. Jarett and his company, A1 Rentals, are one of the sponsors of the annual Bird Doggin’ hunting event, which will be held in Goodwater on Oct. 13.
Unloading ‘Huns’ for release
Review Photo 4629 — Greg Nikkel
Cam Gammack stacked one of the cages of Hungarian partridges on Thursday at Goodwater, after it was delivered by a truck from Wisconsin.
Cornerstone trustees work on strategic planning for new year By Norm Park, SE Cornerstone The Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division’s board members got a head start on the new school year when they gathered for a strategic planning session at Kenosee Lake on August 21-22. Board chairwoman Audrey Trombley said much of the discussion focused on the provincial initiatives found within the education ministry’s original strategic plan that is slated to roll to a completion in 2020. That fact has prompted a need to forge another long-range plan. The discussions surrounding that mandate will begin in October, Trombley said. “So we talked about what we can take to them, and we received a senior leadership team report.
The education partners will work on a go forward plan with new initiatives with the government providing the agenda,” she said. In response to a question concerning their budget, Trombley said she and the other board members were pleased to learn the provincial government will now be covering all salary increases for teachers. In a previous edict, the government had stated they were only prepared to cover half of any contract increase, but that has since changed. “But then we have other employee groups that are in negotiation status now, or in the near future, like SEIU and CUPE. So there is still pressure on the budget.” T h e S a s k a t c h ewa n School Boards Association is also currently
polling individual board members to see if there is any desire to delay local elections for another year, making the board members serve five-year, rather than four-year terms. The proposal for the extension was brought forward by the provincial government, due to a looming situation that will see federal, provincial and local elections falling within a month or two of one another next year. Estevan’s city council has already stated they had no major disagreement with extending their term in office by a year to accommodate the senior governments, but it is not known whether other regional governments and school divisions would also be on board with that suggestion.