Live With It

Urban dwellers miss something quite integral to human life when they rarely come across wildlife in their life experiences. There are of course, raccoons which have habituated themselves to living within an urban environment, nocturnal creatures clever enough to take advantage of available food sources other than what nature supplies for them. They feast on the garbage that humans put out for collection, or they dive into backyard compost piles to feast on kitchen waste. Few people see them however.

Coyotes are accustoming themselves to take advantage of the urban environment as well, though it's less obvious why they do this. It's possible that they feast on dog food put out for canine pets who spend much of their time chained to doghouses which makes one wonder why they're considered to be pets to begin with, kept in a manner offensive to the aeons-long covenant between man and dog. On the other hand, small domesticated animals may be an attraction to coyotes.

And then there are deer. More commonly seen in suburban or country neighbourhoods where people become accustomed to seeing them crossing highways or their lawns, and feeding annoyingly on their prized botanical garden specimens. The habitat we now call our very own was, after all, once theirs too. Theirs primarily, in fact, until human habitation inexorably spread from city to suburbia and further still.

MUNICIPALITY OF OAK BAY    A deer stuck in a fence in Oak Bay, B.C. With unprecedented throngs of deer impaling themselves on fences and smashing into cars, city leaders are proposing a bold plan: Catch the deer and butcher them. 

 

In Oak Bay, British Columbia, a leafy urban suburb of the well-heeled, considered to represent one of Canada's highest income municipalities, deer are appearing in ever-increasing numbers. Deer tend often to migrate toward where humans live. Not because they like humans, nor appreciate their proximity, but because where humans live predators often do not, and deer find safety there.

Deer, the reader is informed in a recent newspaper article about the problem of too many deer showing up in Oak Bay, can leap fences of up to 2.5-metres high. Garden nurseries are beginning to run out of ideas on which plants deer avoid, because of late browsing deer appear to be relishing all nursery stock, including those which traditionally it was believed they would prefer to avoid.

"Almost nothing appears to be deer-proof these days", said Janice Rule, store manager of a local garden supply shop. Not-so-innocent for its disaster-potential, are reports from homeowners of vaulting deer appearing surprisingly and suddenly in the midst of backyard get-togethers. On several occasions, it would appear, narrowly missing children.

YouTube   Two male deer battle each other in the front yard of a Saanich, B.C. home on Nov. 1, 2012. 

 

There have as yet been no true (human) disasters reported, aside from the inevitable collision between deer and vehicles. And perhaps encounters with pets. Eleven years ago, though, a municipal employee of Oak Bay was killed in a collision with a deer, riding his bicycle to work. When he was discovered dead on a cycling trial he had severe head injuries. Investigators saw tufts of deer fur on his mangled bicycle.

The municipal council has come up with what they feel might be a solution. Admittedly it isn't pleasant to find a deer carcass on your lawn; municipal workers have hauled several dozen dead deer out of Oak Bay in a year. "We've had deer that are jumping over a fence, they haven't made it and the pointy part of the fence pierces their midsection and they're hanging when we get there", explained a spokesman for the Oak Bay police.

When the animal can't be revived police are called to shoot them. And now Oak Bay city council gave a unanimous assent to proceed with a deer cull. Predictably the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is up in arms over the proposal. They insist, accurately enough, that even if the present generation of deer has been culled, a vacuum will be left and it will be filled by a succeeding group taking their place.

YouTube    A doe (female) and two fawns feed in the front yard of a Saanich, B.C. home on Nov. 1, 2012. 

 

Surely we can hope that enterprisingly clever humans can come up with a more humanely intelligent compromise than a cull.