The territory's only reindeer may be running wild soon.

On Friday, Stella and Tim Gregory, who own the Northern Splendor reindeer farm, were informed by the territorial government that it will not buy any more food for the herd of about 56 animals.

The government agreed last year to buy the feed for the animals until the problems with the reindeer, their ownership and what can be done with them are sorted out.

At the time, the government promised the animals would not go hungry.

However, that shipment of food lasted 10 months and is slated to run out in 2 1/2 weeks.

Stella expected the government to buy the next $20,000-shipment. She had the feed producers in Alberta ready to make it once they received the go-ahead from the territory that it would pay the bill.

She heard on Friday from the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, which looks after agriculture, that they would not pay for the load of feed.

'There was no grounds (given),' on why the government is pulling the plug, Stella said this morning.

The government's decision caught the Gregorys completely off-guard.

'We're actually devastated and probably still in shock,' she said. 'I don't know what to think.'

Asked what they could do, she was told by the department to 'sell meat.'

But the Gregorys are not comfortable killing these animals.

'We're not going to start slaughtering these animals,' she said.

She won't kill them because, as the Gregorys interpret the law, the animals are wildlife and not owned by them, making it illegal to destroy the reindeer.

She wants to know if they can receive something in writing from the government that would ensure they would not be charged. She was told to speak with the Department of Environment.

Even then, that's not the route she would prefer. She said if the government wants to slaughter the animals, it will have to send out its own people to do it.

She said the government has 2 1/2 weeks to do something about it.

'After that, the gates go open,' she said.

The Gregorys would rather have the gate open and watch the animals head into the wilderness.

'It's better to be charged for trying to save the animals ... then have them dying in the pen on our property,' she said.

She said it would be a matter of interpretation whether they opened the gate or if it was pushed down by either human hands or the reindeer themselves.

She noted there are a lot of willows for the reindeer to eat.

Stella said the government needs to say by the end of the week or early next week if it will change its mind to pay for the feed to ensure it gets trucked up here in time from Alberta.

'The reindeer don't have a lot of time,' she said.

However, if they are close to the end of the 2 1/2 weeks, she said horse feed could be purchased and used in a pinch.

The Gregorys were able to sell the reindeer prior to devolution because they were deemed agriculture under the old Yukon Act. However, when the new Yukon Act took effect in 2003, there was no designation for the animals. There continues to be no such designation for them.

The couple states this means the animals are wildlife and as such, cannot be sold.

They would have preferred to sell within the territory because disease concerns make it hard to sell Outside.

However, the government has admitted there are no provisions in current legislation to enable them to sell the animals.

Last fall, Environment Minister Peter Jenkins said he would give the Gregorys a special permit to export the reindeer outside of the Yukon, which has been indicated by the farmers to not be a plausible market.

He said the government wants to fix the new Yukon Act so the reindeer have the same designation as agriculture which they had before the changes to the act.

But, the Gregorys have said that's not what they want. Because there are no more private game farms in the Yukon, they said there's no one to sell quantities of live animals to locally. So, they would prefer to get out of the game, which the government originally encouraged them to get into in the 1980s.

The Gregorys have been pushing the government to take the animals and compensate them for the 18 years they've been raising them north of Whitehorse, since the legislation now indicates they don't own the animals.

The government and the Gregorys discussed going into some form of mediation last summer. However, after a dispute on exactly what was meant by mediation, the negotiations to get to negotiations fell apart.

In the last six months, Gregory said she's heard from the government twice. On one occasion, the government said it wanted to come in and do testing on the animals.

This testing was set for this August but the government wanted to do it around December and pay for it.

However, when Stella told the government the federal government pays for it, the couple didn't hear anything else on the matter.

The second contact came through a friend of the Gregorys, who was acting as an emissary from Yukon Party MLA and Speaker Ted Staffen.

The woman said Staffen and Lake Laberge MLA Brad Cathers wanted to meet with the Gregorys.

Stella told her to get Staffen to call her.

She hasn't heard back.

She noted that the government tried to bring in a man from B.C. named Doug Dryden to do some of the negotiating.

While she's heard nothing from him in the last few months, the government handed him a contract, without competition, to 'review reindeer/game farm management,' according to the contract registry.

Dryden was handed this contract, approved by Jenkins, on Nov. 1, 2004. It's set to expire on April 30 of this year.

The contract is for $60,000.

She noted that would be enough money to feed the reindeer for 30 months.

NDP Leader Todd Hardy, who's been helping the Gregorys in their battle, noted the government tried to push Dryden on the farmers last year.

'This is outrageous,' he said about the contract. He said that if Dryden is reviewing reindeer in the territory, one would think he would consult with the people who've been raising them for 18 years.

Hardy is upset with the government's decision to pull the plug on the feed.

'This is a complete about-face,' he said, referring to the government's promise to pay for the feed.

Hardy said he won't give up.

'I'll be there trying to get the feed to them.'

There was no response available from the government by press time early this afternoon.