Parks Canada says the fallow deer must be eradicated before their population rebounds
With a $5.9-million project to eradicate invasive deer from Sidney Island and restore native plant species set to start in the fall, many are questioning the price tag.
The Parks Canada project involves two marksmen in a helicopter and another two on the ground killing as many fallow deer as possible over a 10-day period starting in the late fall. A year later, any survivors would be flushed out, contained using fencing and trained tracker dogs, and shot. A report on harvest numbers for 2022-23 shows a significant decline in the total number of deer removed each year, dropping from 436 in 2014-15 to 88 in the most recent year. Those numbers include both invasive European fallow deer and native black-tailed deer, which accounted for 10 per cent of last year’s total.
Kate Humble, superintendent of Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, said while the number of fallow deer is currently relatively low, the population has gone through cycles of rebounding to unsustainable levels after dropping over the past few decades.
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