Appeals court stops deer hunt
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?
Blork 13:49 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
Both. Some will die, but people are feeding them (although it’s not permitted).
Blork 13:54 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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.
EmilyG 14:45 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
I wonder if there will be more of them born, leading to a population increase.
Blork 15:12 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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.
Kate 15:17 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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?
Spi 15:28 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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.
Kevin 19:56 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
Kate
Their plan is to capture the deer over several months, treat them for disease and parasites, sterilize them, and then move them.
Kate 20:10 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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…
Blork 20:19 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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.
steph 20:46 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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.
Kevin 23:03 on 2022-12-15 Permalink
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…
Kate 16:00 on 2022-12-16 Permalink
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.
Blork 18:03 on 2022-12-16 Permalink
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?