Williams Lake's friendly, social & entertaining online news source!

By LeRae Haynes

Williams Lake RCMP Constable Colin Champagne has recently launched an email program, along with the BC Cattlemen’s Association, to help track down owners of cattle that are loose on the highway. The Cattlemen’s Association has been working with Constable Champagne, and with their members, to compile a list so that loose cattle on the roads, which constitute a driving hazard for motorists and a potential financial loss for ranchers, can be reported as soon as possible.

Once the BC Cattlemen’s Association heard of Colin’s project, they asked him if they could include it in their bi-monthly magazine, as an idea that could benefit other areas in the province.

Constable Champagne said that the idea originated last June, when he started with the Williams Lake RCMP. “One of the first calls I did was out on Likely Road where a lady in a minivan had an accident, was injured and was taken to the hospital,” he said. “Because I have a ranching background, I recognized that the fence was down and, after we called the tow truck, I said to my partner, ‘Who do we contact about the damaged fence?’

“He didn’t know—nobody seemed to know who to ask, or who to contact. I thought that this must be a regular problem. We left there, with the fence down, and I thought, ‘We need to get this fixed.’”

 He said he got started by contacting the presidents of the seven local Cattlemen’s Associations in the Cariboo District. “I went to a couple of Cattlemen’s meetings, told them about the problem and they got an earful,” he said. “During the summer we had so much livestock hit on the highway, where we didn’t know whom to contact--that’s very frustrating for the RCMP members.”

The email program that Colin designed allows RCMP to contact ranchers when loose cattle are reported on the road, or a broken fence is reported.  He said that the project, which is all volunteer, is working well.

“When a call comes in an RCMP member will send a quick message to me, and I send it to all the Cattlemen,” he explained. “A lot of the information we send may be irrelevant to most of them, but the point is that when there is relevant information, they will get it.”

He said that the results and the feedback for the program have been very positive from the Cattlemen, and that he hopes to include a livestock section on the local RCMP website.

“One big goal for me in this project is this: ranchers are all hard-working people who are struggling to make a living in the current beef market, and when things happen like fence damage or loss of livestock due to an accident, they get the short end of the stick,” he said. “When they find a fence down or a cow dead in the ditch, they have nowhere to turn. 

“It’s good for the RCMP to have a good relationship with the ranchers. This program helps prevent income loss for ranchers and helps make the roads safer.”  

| More...