Ensemble tried to mock Mayor Plante on Thursday morning over the safety of streets in Centre‑Sud, but she turned the tables by reminding them that their party had, at every turn, tried to block traffic calming measures proposed by hers. It took the council chairman’s refusal to allow the death of a kid to become politicized to end the angry debate.
It’s too bad that it’s taken this incident to remind all of them that Centre‑Sud needs more crossing guards and better designed streets.
A business on St-Laurent near Crémazie was firebombed overnight, a storefront in a small commercial building as you can see here. Oddly, the business is not a bar, restaurant or barbershop, as is more usual in this type of incident, but an accounting firm.
In unrelated firebombing news, someone is attacking properties belonging to the Accurso family.
Cops already paid off so probably will never hear anything more about this.
The Court of Appeal has put a stop to the planned deer hunt in Longueuil for the moment. Another hearing will be held in April. According to this, 15 deer should have remained in the park after a hunt, while right now there are 108.
Won’t natural selection kill some of them off from hunger, over the winter, considering they’re more or less trapped? Or are they being fed to keep them off the roads, as in the past?
Both. Some will die, but people are feeding them (although it’s not permitted).
Side note: in years past it was unusual the see a male. Seems like it was a large harem of females with only one or two males, and they were always young with barely any antlers. But this year there are a bunch of males, including one large one with an impressive rack. I see him almost every time I go through the park.
I wonder if there will be more of them born, leading to a population increase.
There’s no reason to think they won’t. The population has exploded over the past 2 or 3 years, and they’re still out there doing what animals do.
I wish journalists would quiz the SPCA or the Animal Rescue group (Anne-France Goldwater) on what they expect to happen here. The deer can’t migrate from the park in a natural way, but they won’t stop reproducing, so they’re going to increase until they starve or until some of them are killed or moved. What other possibilities are there?
Frankly it’s gotten to a point where I feel like they should just let people live with the idiocy of their ideas. Let them reproduce until it’s a completely unmitigated disaster and the park is dotted with the corps of the deer that starved. The people that opposed the culling can be responsible for the collection and disposal of the animal carcasses. Maybe if we’re lucky foxes will move in and take care of that, oh right they’ll want the foxes gone because it’s a threat to their pooches.
Kate
Their plan is to capture the deer over several months, treat them for disease and parasites, sterilize them, and then move them.
Kevin, I was sure I’d read that moving them was not advised, but I can’t remember the points why.
Obviously the option you describe would be possible, but expensive.
I still like the idea of introducing a pack of wolves…
As someone who walks through that park almost daily, often after dark, I’m not crazy about the wolves idea. 🙂 But the sterilization? Bring it on! I personally love seeing the deer there every day. They’re so tame you can literally poke them in the nose. I’d hate to see them gone altogether, but if they slowly died off due to reduced reproduction I’d be down with that.
It’s really too bad all these delays are letting the ‘deer do their thring’, will lead to a destruction of the parks bio-diversity. Lets be honest, they’re destroying the place.
Kate
Most studies I’ve seen show some deer don’t survive being tranked (why anesthesiologists are in high demand) and some die within weeks of being captured because of the stress (they are prey animals after all). Overall fewer than half are still alive a year later, and of those that survive, about half wind up in another city.
Meanwhile does give birth to two or three more fawns every year…
Blork, if – as Kevin says – deer are so nervous that they can die from the shock of being tranquilized, then surely sterilizing them is off the board as well. I don’t see how it would be much different putting them under to operate on them vs. putting them under to truck them out to a provincial park.
Also, if Kevin is right that deer born in a place like the park often end up back in urban settings, we’re looking at a breed that has become dependent on human handouts or at least human byproducts, like nicely planted shrubberies.
Is it the tranquilizing that does them in, or is it the moving (i.e., waking up in an unfamiliar environment)? I don’t know, but if it’s the latter then maybe it’s still an option. And I wonder if they can be chemically sterilized via food that’s left out for them?
The MUHC has a new chief, Dr. Lucie Opatrny, Quebec’s deputy health minister.
(Is that not any kind of conflict of interest? Is she a member of the CAQ? What does her appointment say about the direction of the MUHC toward more privatization?)
Fady Dagher has been confirmed as the new police chief.
The CHUM is also about to get a new chief.
Deputy ministers are members of the civil service, not the government. Traditionally, they’re non-partisan and continue serving in their posts regardless of who’s in power, but there has been a trend towards more US-style politicization of the civil service, so who knows in this case.
A practicing physician, and professor of medicine until 2018 when she accepted the post in the civil service. Seems to be very highly thought of.
From the MUHC web site:
“Dr. Opatrny earned her Medical degree and a Master’s in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University, as well as a Master’s in Healthcare Management and a Diploma in Advanced Negotiations from Harvard University. She has served in the capacity of Director of Professional Services at the CISSS de Laval and St. Mary’s Hospital Center, in addition to being a practicing physician at the MUHC between 2004 and 2012. Before her appointment to the government in 2018, she also taught in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill.”
From La Presse Jan. 16, 2021:
« Comme si tous les Québécois étaient mes patients »
Thank you, H. John and DeWolf.
The delays in constructing the city’s own composting facilities are explained here. Meanwhile, composting materials are still being trucked some distance off the island.
It’s incredible how long it takes to put that kind of thing together. There was a pilot project for municipal composting back in 1990, and possibly earlier. Still in “beta.”
Two women were shot and one has died in an incident in a Point St Charles apartment early Thursday morning.
Update: The second woman has died, making these the 37th and 38th homicides this year. Radio‑Canada reports they are a grandmother and granddaughter.
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