It should not be up to municipalities and nonprofit groups to manage deer and other urban wildlife 鈥� the province should take leadership. Oak Bay has budgeted $40,000 for deer management this year. Last year, it conducted a cull in which 11 deer were killed. That sparked a lot of protest.
It鈥檚 the kind of issue municipal leaders hate, and for good reason. No matter what is decided, substantial numbers of people will be angry. Compromise is difficult.
Those who oppose killing deer will not be mollified if just a few are removed. And taking out just a few will not satisfy those who are tired of seeing their gardens ravaged, and who believe their children and pets are in danger.
Politicians are constantly being told they are doing things wrong, but that criticism seldom comes with workable ideas on how to do things right. The Urban Wildlife Stewardship Society doesn鈥檛 want to see deer killed, but it has offered to do something, creating a detailed plan to address the problem.
The society, created in April 2015, comprises residents of Oak Bay and includes current and former educators, retired biologists, civil servants and working professionals. It has a scientific advisory group with scientists from the University of Victoria and Camosun College. The group aims to find and develop a science-based alternative to killing deer, to assemble a reliable count of the deer population and to educate the public about reducing human-deer conflict.
The society favours controlling deer numbers through the use of SpayVac, a contraceptive vaccine. It has raised funds to that end and has proposed to sterilize 50 does with the vaccine.
Oak Bay set aside $5,000 for that project and released half the funds in July. It will release the rest of the money when the society obtains the necessary permits.
The prospects of solving the deer problem, by whatever means, in Oak Bay are not good, because the problem is not confined to Oak Bay. Deer don鈥檛 recognize municipal boundaries. Remove some from Oak Bay, and others will move in from adjacent areas.
To be effective, management of urban wildlife must be done on a regional basis. And the province should take the lead. Many B.C. municipalities wrestle with urban-wildlife issues, and different approaches are tried, but it鈥檚 a lot of groping in the dark with limited resources. Since the province has jurisdiction over wildlife, it needs to take ownership of the problem.
A provincewide approach would make better use of resources, and would avoid duplication of research, piecemeal solutions and trips down blind alleys. The government should assemble reliable scientific data on deer populations and create a team of its own scientists and technicians.
Urban-deer numbers are rising, not because development has driven them from their habitat, but because it has created habitat, with a profusion of plant life and an absence of predators. We are, in effect, breeding herds of urban deer.
What are the best tools? Sterilization is effective only if 90 per cent of the does in a region are vaccinated. Relocation sounds attractive, but urban deer don鈥檛 fare well in the wild 鈥� a U.S. study found that as many as 85 per cent die within a year of being relocated because they haven鈥檛 developed the abilities and instincts necessary to cope with their new environment.
The urban-wildlife issue is not a problem to be solved with a single solution. It鈥檚 something that will always need to be managed, and it requires provincial leadership.
The province, which has allotted a measly $100,000 to municipalities for deer management, should be at the heart of this issue, instead of just nibbling around the edges.
