Mayor Jim Ogilvie cannot completely absolve the good citizens of Kimberley of any responsibility for the urban deer problem. While the Province is charged with managing our wildlife it is the municipalities, or rather the citizens within, that are a large part of the problem.

The responsibility rests with the people who a) choose to feed the deer, b) choose not to hold their deer feeding neighbours accountable and c) choose to have beautiful shrub filled gardens but fail to protect them. I know that protecting them also poses problems. Nobody wants a nine foot fence in their front yard, but that is one solution. Much like the bear problem, if there is no food, there are no deer.

Since the citizens don’t have the collective will to cut off the food supply the only option is culling. Contraception does not work. It has been tried in U.S. suburbia to no avail. The fawns that are born to the does that don’t receive the medicine (it is impossible to get them all, half would be a feat) simply enjoy greater survivability due to less competition.

I have a problem with the notion that a cull is “ethically and morally wrong”. What do these people eat? Just vegetables? How many bambis did the tofu packing truck take out on its way here? How many field mice bought it under the wheels of the wheat harvester? An individual’s existence on this planet means that other animals will die. No exceptions. Get over it. The culled animals could be used to stock local food banks, thus helping to alleviate another problem. Nobody should find a problem with that.

George Terpsma

Wycliffe