11′ 8.2″

Fork length of a white sturgeon (above) caught and released on B.C.’s Fraser River by guests of the guiding company Sturgeon Slayers. The unofficial new world record fish, estimated to weigh 1,200 pounds, smashes the existing official all-tackle world record of 468 pounds. It also pips the company’s previous record by almost two inches.

 

4

Times Ottawa has delayed the deadline for gun owners to surrender or deactivate prohibited “assault-style” rifles. The amnesty will now end within 90 days after the Supreme Court rules next year on a legal challenge to the ban by the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.

2,844

Wolves culled in B.C. since 2015 by the province’s Ministry of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship. Designed to protect threatened woodland caribou herds, the cull has also removed 51 cougars. At press time, officials were considering extending the cull for another five years.

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Humans killed by black bears in Saskatchewan so far this year. In May, a bear killed a 27-year-old man at a uranium exploration site in the province’s remote north. And in July, a man and wife were killed at their fishing cabin on McTavish Lake, a fly-in destination 90 kilometres north of La Ronge. Until this year, only four bear-related fatalities had been recorded in the province’s history.

1

Lakes in Saskatchewan found to contain zebra mussels, as of July. Lake of the Prairies became the province’s first waterbody to harbour the aquatic invasive species after mussel larvae, or veligers, were discovered during routine monitoring. Both Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which share the lake, have now instituted strict decontamination protocols.