Episode 33
Wild Sheep Need Help From BC's Farmers
This episode, an interview with Helen Schwantje. Helen was the Wildlife Veterinarian for British Columbia from 1992 to 2021. To this day she continues as an emeritus and conducts contract work for government and NGOs on a variety of wildlife health issues. Helen has spent a lot of her career focused on the health of BC’s wild sheep herds, and she joined me to talk about the relationship between a specific virus, the domesticated sheep that carry it, and the wild sheep populations that are under threat because of it. And how she hopes to see more action by our governments and by farmers to do what’s necessary to contain this threat.
I’ll also be sharing some updates from our colleagues in the BC farming sector in the middle segment.
Links:
Transmission, the full length documentary about MOVI and its effect on wild sheep.
Wild Sheep Society of BC
A Helen Schwantje bio from the web
This recent interview with Helen provides a broader perspective on her career.
Mentioned in this episode:
Submit Your One Idea for Government Spending on the Ag Sector
On May 27 I’m planning to release an episode about Canada’s Next Policy Framework for Agriculture, which will greatly influence how the ag sectors of BC and Canada get funded. For that episode, I would really love to hear from some of you. What’s your one big insight or idea about how our governments should invest in agriculture that they’re either not currently doing or doing wrong? I’m interested in both your grand ideas but also just little tweaks to funding that you think would improve our sector. To share your idea, you can send me a voice recording, or invite me to interview you for 5 minutes. Either way, visit farminginbc.ca/submit to quickly and easily get hold of me.
