05/17/2026
For generations across southern Alberta and the Prairie provinces, strychnine occupied a strange and contradictory place in everyday life.
Long before it became widely known as a dangerous poison, small doses of strychnine were sold in pharmacies as stimulants and “nerve tonics.” Physicians prescribed it for weakness, exhaustion, respiratory distress, digestive disorders, and shock. Medicine bottles frequently listed combinations such as “iron, quinine & strychnine.” Remarkably, the substance even appeared in athletics: during the infamous 1904 Olympic marathon, runner Thomas Hicks was administered strychnine as a stimulant during the race. This is acknowledged as one of the first known instances of drug use in the Olympics.
Across Alberta, Strychnine became most associated with agriculture and predator control. Poison grain and bait campaigns were widely used against Richardson’s ground squirrels (“gophers”), coyotes, wolves, and skunks throughout much of the twentieth century. (Dorrance 1980).
Ecologists became increasingly concerned about unintended consequences. Hawks, owls, foxes, badgers, domestic dogs, and scavenging birds could also die after consuming poisoned prey or carcasses (Cowan 2025). Researchers later questioned whether large-scale poisoning campaigns disrupted Prairie predator-prey balance by reducing natural rodent predators while failing to create lasting population declines.
Researchers increasingly compared widespread poison baiting with more targeted fumigation and burrow-treatment methods, which reduced secondary poisoning risks to non-target wildlife (Sullivan, Sullivan, and Hogue 1998).
In a striking reminder of how unresolved this history remains, Alberta once again approved emergency strychnine use for ground squirrel control in 2026, reigniting long-standing debates over agriculture, wildlife management, and ecological ethics on the Prairies.
Dorrance 1980: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/vpc9/9/
Cowan 2025: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388658785
Sullivan et al. 1998: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261219497001117
