London's No Sense "No Kill Wildlife" Policy
My first impressions of the way the newly elected London City Council is headed is Council is to all intents and purposes being more foolish and downright stupid. The latest is this "no kill wildlife" policy that Council is considering without, of course, knowing what they are doing is reported in the November 20, 2014 edition of the Londoner newspaper.
The City of London, which not long ago established a no-kill policy around companion animals, will now apply the same standards to wildlife - even without knowing the costs
"Car verses deer" incidents are a very serious problem. This is when a driver hits a deer that runs suddenly in front of the driver's travelling vehicle. Before a couple of years ago, I blamed this on driver error. Going too fast, not paying attention, it was the driver that was to blame. That was until I was driving down a city street in Downtown London, and a deer ran in front of my car.
Fortunately for me and the deer, my speed was slower than normal at the time of the incident, and the deer was not struck, but it was very close. The speed in which the deer appeared and blurred across the front of my compact car, partially disappearing from view, before racing onto the other side of the road in the built up residential neighbourhood was astonishing. Had I struck the deer, it is unlikely with the size and speed of my car that the deer would have been killed. I would have likely had a wreaked car, and a wounded and suffering deer to deal with. Something I could not deal with myself. The police would have to be called, and an officer would need to shoot the deer to put it out of its suffering.
London has long had a large white tail deer population that nobody ever wants to deal with, and this new stupid idea from City Council will do more to ensure the population grows to levels too large. Deer, like many other animals, do not do well when crowded. Deer are not herd animals. The more deer in a area is not better. Starvation, disease, and conflict between individiual deer (males) are just some factors that effect an over population of deer. Another factor is humans and deer coming into conflict with each other in such ways as deer destroying property, or vehicle and deer collisions. The deer population cannot be managed by natural means, as so many people seem to think. Predators naturally help to manage the populations of prey animals.
Wolves prey on deer, and occasionally bears do too, but there are none of those predators around here anymore. Coyotes have moved into the area, and are also a predator, and usually hunt deer in Winter, or fawns in the other seasons, but deer is not the coyote's main prey as coyotes are opportunistic feeders.
A large population of prey animals will eventually attract predators to the area. A black bear came into the City a few years ago, and was shot dead by police after it became aggressive. The reason the bear came south is not known, but a large food source of deer should be examined as a slight possibility, as well as the strong possibility the bear population is not being managed properly because of unfounded restrictions on bear hunting imposed by the Provincial government.
Humane methods of killing is one way to manage wildlife. An annual deer count, and a cull if necessary to keep the deer numbers in check, and the deer population healthy. Problem wildlife need to be killed if there is no other reasonable option. City Council needs to come up with a plan based on reason and reality, and not emotions and fantasy, to manage our city wildlife.
© Trevor Dailey