Firstly let me say that although Robert Handfield sometimes agrees with Eva Durance, I need you to know I agree with neither of these people.
Their push for a national park reserve only shows that they both wish to protect deer further and impose their burgeoning populations on other people. Landowners and farmers away from their shangri-la called Kaleden will suffer greatly.
What they don’t understand is that for every person that writes a letter to the ministry complaining about the deer, others are content to enjoy their presence. After all, people don’t write letters when they are happy — not often anyway.
The backlash from such a cull will make headlines for certain. I’m sure you’ve all heard of PETA and of course Pam Anderson, they will be certain to make a show of the cull as it is. The first deer to be shot and run in front of people or children with blood spraying out of it will do nothing but spur on the headlines. The ministry biologists will be pulling their hair out trying to field questions and do interviews with TV and newspapers. All a waste of taxpayers dollars and valuable ministry time. Research shows that trapping of bears is questionable. However, ungulates have been trapped very successfully.
I know of places where these mule deer could be taken, and with some certainty can guarantee they won’t return. This would alleviate some concern on Kaleden landowners that their flowers would not be eaten and their poodles not mauled. But alas, at a cost of approximately $500 per animal it is not likely Ms. Durance nor Mr. Handfield will chip in ... we can ask though.
So my advice would be to start a deer transplant fund, and landowners in Kaleden who whine about deer should be forced to put at least a few hundred in the fund. The deer could each be named after a donor and then set free in the wild so we can hunt them. In closing a deer cull in Kaleden is exactly that, a cull.
Ernie Marven
Cawston