Manitoba ranchers move cattle as floodwaters rise

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Manitoba ranchers scrambled to move cattle to higher ground on Friday as efforts to contain record flooding on the Assiniboine River funneled high water into a major livestock region.

Across Manitoba, 3,200 people have left their homes because of flooding, including 1,300 in Brandon, the province's second-largest city.

To contain flooding along the Assiniboine, Manitoba is forcing about one-third more water than normal capacity through a the Portage Diversion, an engineered channel that has been fortified to carry the extra flow, and divert it into Lake Manitoba.

That move has eased pressure on dikes, but is swamping pasture around the lake and forcing ranchers to move cattle -- some likely as far as the neighboring province of Saskatchewan.

Some ranchers have estimated they may need to move up to 100,000 cattle, or about 9 percent of Manitoba's herd. The provincial government has declared the situation a "livestock emergency" and estimated the number of cattle to move in the thousands.

"On our farm, the pastures are all going under water," said Joel Delaurier, who lives near Eddystone, Manitoba. On Friday, Delaurier kept his son home from school to help move 600 animals, or half of his herd, to pasture where they can graze.

"They'll just starve to death if we leave them here."

The flood will also make it harder and more costly for ranchers to feed cattle throughout the year because of soggy pasture, Delaurier said. Some ranchers may sell their herds.

Manitoba is the fifth-largest cattle-producing province in Canada, which is the world's No. 3 beef shipper.

Delaurier, whose farm is nearly 100 years old, said his family has never seen Lake Manitoba so high. People blame the provincial government for pumping water into it from other areas, he said.

"We're being sacrificed here."

The lake's edge has crept to within 75 yards of Delaurier's house, requiring construction of a five-foot high clay dike.

On Saturday morning, Manitoba's left-leaning New Democratic Party government plans to open the Assiniboine dike and deliberately flood 225 square kilometers (55,600 acres) in a bid to head off a more damaging, unplanned breach. The government faces an election this fall.

About 1,300 soldiers arrived in Manitoba this week to help fortify dikes.

The floodwaters are moving into the province from rivers in Saskatchewan and the U.S. northern Plains that are swollen because of heavy winter snowfall, spring rain and already-saturated ground.

Crop planting across Western Canada, a key wheat and canola growing region, is well behind schedule.

The eastern province of Quebec has also seen flooding, with thousands of homes swamped along the Richelieu River between Montreal and the U.S. state of Vermont.

Water levels on the Richelieu as well as Lake Champlain have been receding, but they could rise again from several days of rain expected to start this weekend.

Severe flooding in the United States on the Mississippi River has also forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes and is expected to flood 3 million farm acres.

(Additional reporting by Randall Palmer in Ottawa; editing by Rob Wilson)