The letters to the editor section in the Dec. 4 edition of the Oak Bay News was full of emotional letters from people who love animals – at any cost.
I would hope that in the future you would present more balance.
For example, are the deer on the increase in numbers? Cars, cyclists and pedestrian encounters seem to indicate yes. Is this a hazard to our and the deer health and well-being? Yes.
Do the experts have any idea what the outcome would be if we allow the deer to stay and continue to propagate? How many are too many?
Mother Nature has an excellent system of naturally “culling” by having predators (we either kill or move cougars and bears away from suburban areas) or when a population gets too high, animals slowly starve to death.
Do the experts really know why the deer have moved into suburbia? It seems that it is likely to be a combination of easy pickings for food as well as possibly more limited rural areas. So high fencing around crops on the Peninsula would tend to push more deer into town.
I agree that culling only a few dozen deer in a few municipalities will not change the status quo, but we need to start somewhere with keeping the population of deer under control and all municipalities need to be involved.
By the way, I haven’t seen any deer at dusk for some days, maybe just talking about a cull in Oak Bay has had them decide to move to more deer-friendly Saanich?
Jennie Sutton
Oak Bay