Monday, July 24, 2017

Why Deer Lovers Should Defend Bears


Photo courtesy of Jim Lawrence

We have a new provincial government in power.  The NDP campaigned on the promise that they would ban the grizzly trophy hunt, and we want to see that promise kept.

Many of us know that the hunting lobby has worked closely with the former BC Liberals for sixteen years, and that they've utilized their friends in high places to erode animal protections, increasing hunting "opportunities" in our Province.  Some of us know the close relations between high profile Kootenay hunters and MLAs of the day, and the financial benefits that came their way, and not just in the guide outfitting industry.  But I'll get to that in a minute. 

When the Dogwood Initiative exposed that a $60,000 cheque had been sent to the Guide Outfitters of BC from the trophy hunting organization Safari Club International to boost the BC Liberal campaign, the extent of the corruption came as a surprise.  It shouldn't have.  

In September 2011 the CBC ran an article [Kootenay to Cull Urban Deer] that Cranbrook, Invermere and Kimberley were going to cull their urban deer using a method from Helena, Montana. The method was unheard of in British Columbia.  Deer would be caught in baited traps (called clover traps) during the night, and some time in the early morning hours two contractors would collapse the trap onto the deer, throw their body weight on the animals and attempt to hit them in their heads with a bolt gun that was designed for slaughtering animals in abattoirs. 

The cities of Cranbrook and Kimberley had created deer committees some months before this announcement.  On them were two high profile game hunters; Carmen Purdy and Ron Kerr.  Both Purdy and Kerr quit the committee to travel to Helena, Montana to learn first-hand how the method was conducted.  At the same time, the BC Liberals provided $15,000 to fund the "ground-breaking program" [CBC Nov 2011, These Nets Stop Deer, Not Pucks]. Ten traps were built, two bolt guns and a plastic sled were purchased.

The contracts in the first year were awarded to local hunters, which included Carmen Purdy.  Purdy was culling in Elkford in 2014, where he set traps during daylight hours and an 8-year-old boy saw the cull happen.  Ron Kerr applied to cull Oak Bay deer in 2015, receiving $16,000 to kill 11 deer.  He was the only applicant.

Grand Forks and Invermere secured standing permits to trap/bolt gun their urban deer over five year and three year periods respectively.

The hunting lobby had created for itself a nice little cottage industry, and it came at the expense of peace of mind for most urban dwellers.  Appeals to the province for more humane deer management were met with the statement that culling was the only permitted method to control urban deer.

Our province is long overdue for a science-based, compassionate approach to wildlife management.  One that isn't driven solely by the emotional assertion that hunters have the right to kill animals for their pleasure and recreation. Or pin money.  British Columbian wildlife also belongs to the majority of non-consumptive residents.

There is finally hope that British Columbia has a government that will listen to the majority.

Carmen Purdy receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal from then MLA Bill Bennett


  

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Victoria to seek outside funding for deer control


Photograph By BRUCE STOTESBURY, Times Colonist

Victoria will call on both the province and the Capital Regional District to take a more active role in deer management in the city.
Councillors agreed Thursday to have the mayor write to the premier and to the CRD about the issue. However, they stopped short of allocating any funding in next year’s budget to deer management.
Instead, they directed staff to search for funding opportunities through the province or the CRD to work with the Urban Wildlife Stewardship Society to undertake deer-population counts and perhaps have staff do opinion surveys and keep track of the impact of deer. If no external funding can be found, they are to report back to council.
Coun. Charlayne Thornton Joe, who proposed the motion, said the deer issue has to be looked at with a provincial or regional lens.
“I still feel we need to be looking at this larger than municipality to municipality,” Thornton Joe said.
Culling “really doesn’t work [because] when the population is reduced, other deer will come in to replace the deer that have been culled,” she said.
“So if they’re only doing in it one municipality, unless we teach the deer to read, and say ‘no deer allowed in Victoria,’ no municipality is going to be able to catch up.”
Before any deer-management program such as contraception or culling is even considered, the first thing that has to be done is determine the extent of the problem, what neighbourhoods are most affected and the extent of the impact, she said.
“So do we have 30 deer in Fairfield or do we have five deer and everybody is seeing the same deer all the same time?” Thornton-Joe said. “Apparently deer are pretty good at keeping usual routes, and groups like the Urban Wildlife Stewardship Society are well educated and counting what trails those routes may be.”
While there is anecdotal evidence that conflicts with deer are on the increase, the extent of the deer situation in the city is really an unknown, city clerk Chris Coates told councillors.
Coun. Marianne Alto said deer are primarily a provincial responsibility. “But I do think that, ultimately, we’ve set a precedent in a number of areas about looking at what the city can do to have some kind of an impact on the local effect of larger problems,” she said.
“This is not going away. I’m not at all convinced on what the way forward is, so I do support this from the perspective of finding out what the baseline is.”
Mayor Lisa Helps supported undertaking the work, but said it shouldn’t be funded through property-tax dollars.
“We only get eight cents of every tax dollar and I don’t think we should be spending property-tax dollars [on the deer initiative]. I do think we will be able to find funding either through this new government or some other means,” Helps said.
Victoria’s appeal to the CRD might not go far. In 2015 CRD directors agreed the region should take only a limited role in deer management.
Oak Bay has been a local leader in trying to deal with deer. In a controversial move, Oak Bay conducted a cull in 2015 that cost $270,000 and saw 11 deer killed over a two-week period.
This year, Oak Bay was awarded a $20,000 grant that it plans to match to radio-collar up to 20 deer and install motion-activated video cameras on trails frequented by deer. The program will be undertaken in partnership with the Urban Wildlife Stewardship Society.
Esquimalt conducted a survey last year to gather residents’ views regarding deer and is planning a population count of the animals next year.
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