Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Fort Providence (Oct 21/02) - Maybe the kids can be forgiven -- after all, what teenager could resist making buffalo stampede -- but leaders of Fort Providence want the government to do something about wild animals in their streets.

"Usually this time of year, what happens is there's herds of buffalo that come to town," said Providence SAO Albert Lafferty.

"They cause damage to property, lawns, gardens, trees and fences. And they're on the streets, so there's a potential for vehicles to collide with them."

Every night, between one and three herds of 10 to 15 buffalo walks into the town of 700, often with little regard for things like fences, which they trample.

The fence at the baseball diamond, for example, has been stomped down and people's yards and gardens have been destroyed.

Worse, the skittish animals are easily pushed to stampede by pestering dogs or teasing teenagers.

There's a couple of different theories on why the buffalo come to town. One is that the buffalo are trying to avoid predators -- packs of wolves are particularly prevalent in the area.

But Evelyn Krutko, a renewable resources officer with RWED in Providence, doesn't give that theory much weight.

In her mind, it's the sins of unmowed grass that are drawing the buffalo inside city limits.

"The grasses are quite high in some of the areas. ... They've got to forage somewhere and they see this nice luscious grass in the community," said Krutko.

Making matters worse, water levels have been high in the past few years, flooding out other potential feeding grounds.

The buffalo push through deep snow with their massive pates to eat grasses in the winter. In the summer, they munch on grasses and other flora, like dandelions.

Some community leaders have pushed the government to act on the matter, but so far Jim Antoine, minister of RWED, has made no promises.

"It's getting to be a serious safety concern. ... If it was bears or any other types of wild animals roaming the community, those animals would be destroyed," said Deh Cho MLA Michael McLeod in the legislative assembly Wednesday.

"Can the minister tell me if these animals that are in the community if they could be destroyed by community leadership?"

Fort Providence currently has a quota to kill 20 buffalo a year.

Antoine said he welcomed the invitation, and said at-risk species legislation which is currently being discussed "would have provisions in there on how to deal with this issue."

Lafferty said the buffalo are often led into the community by one or two buffalo, and shooting the leaders could solve the problem. Antoine said shooting "could be one of the options out there."