Bob Mackin
The Denver Nuggets are coming to Vancouver’s Rogers Arena Oct. 6 to meet the Toronto Raptors in an NBA exhibition game.
Will the 2023 champion’s billionaire owner, Stan Kroenke, join them?
Stan Kroenke (Denver Nuggets)
Kroenke, whose sports portfolio also includes the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, NFL’s L.A. Rams and EPL’s Arsenal, is B.C.’s largest private landowner through Douglas Lake Cattle Co. (DLCC). Canada’s largest working ranch, east of Merritt, came under B.C. Forest Practices Board scrutiny for treatment of the vulnerable Great Basin spadefoot toad.
What the board found
On Sept. 16, the board released the results of its audit, finding three areas of “significant non-compliance.”
- Some 6.7 kilometres of riparian areas around nine wetlands were not-functional due to cattle and horse grazing;
- A wetland inside a designated wildlife habitat area for the toad suffered “extensive damage” from cattle and horses;
- Additionally, the company was not in full compliance with rules to protect riparian area and aquatic habitat for the toad in two pastures.
Otherwise, according to director of audits Francis Njenga, Douglas Lake Ranch’s range planning and practices complied with the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Range Planning and Practices Regulation.
Map of Forest Practices audit area. (FPB)
Why Douglas Lake
The board “randomly selected” the Cascades Natural Resource District for a full-scale compliance audit in 2024. Douglas Lake Ranch includes the Nicola watershed and falls partly or fully within land claimed by 19 indigenous tribes.
Kroenke originally bought 500,000 acres in 2003 from Bernard Ebbers, the Edmonton-born WorldCom tycoon. In 2021, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled that the Trespass Act permits DLCC to prohibit the public from crossing its property, “including its land under water.” Specifically, Crown-owned Minnie and Stoney fishing lakes.
In the same year, the White Rock Lake wildfire burned more than 53,000 acres.
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