The decision by Parks Canada to kill all of the European fallow deer on Sidney Island will also include scores of native blacktails because sharpshooters in helicopters and ground hunters at night won’t be able to tell the difference, a demonstration heard Friday on the Sidney waterfront.
That’s heartbreaking for residents of Sidney Island like Wendy Ord, who says the plan to start a co-ordinated mass slaughter of European fallow deer isn’t even necessary because the numbers are already low.
“They are going to kill all the deer on our island because by helicopter who really can tell which are which,” said Ord, a documentary filmmaker who has lived on Sidney Island for years.
She said Parks Canada has applied for exemptions to skirt basic hunting rules by using helicopters, loudspeakers and drop nets to capture and kill the deer — and round them up in fencing where they can shoot and kill them.
“It’s going to terrify the deer and us,” said Ord. “I think the most difficult thing will be to be on the island when all this killing is taking place. It will be very disturbing and terrifying to people, pets and the animals on the Island.”
“On top of that,” said Rob Milne, another Island resident, “is we also have a lot of bald eagles and raptors on the island. [Parks Canada] kind of sloughed it off saying we’re on the approach path of Victoria airport, so they already have aircraft overhead. But we’re talking about a helicopter that’s going to be right at the treetops and the eagles.”
About 75 people gathered in Beacon Park in Sidney to protest the planned eradication of deer, which Parks Canada and First Nations partners say is necessary to restore an ecological balance on Sidney Island. Proponents say the understory of plants — many of which have medicinal qualities for the W̱SÁNEĆ people — have been disappearing since the fallow deer swam over from nearby James Island in the 1960s.
The species was introduced there in 1902 to promote a hunting industry.
Parks Canada has awarded a $5.9-million project to Coastal Conservation that covers the deer eradication project as well consultation with the public and Indigenous communities, support of annual hunting for W̱SÁNEĆ community members, the removal of invasive plants and replanting of native species until 2026.
Parks Canada estimates the shooting will likely start some time between Nov. 25 and Dec. 14, with a second phase of shootings to round up whatever deer are left the following winter.
A petition was signed and delivered to Saanich-Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May, who wasn’t in her office, but told the Times Colonist in a later interview that she is looking at the Parks Canada plan.
May is still recovering from suffering a stroke in June and admits that she’s late in giving her attention to the deer-eradication project in her riding.
May noted that key permits with Transport Canada over the use of helicopters for hunting permits with B.C. Wildlife management have not yet been issued, so there is “still time to have some discussions” about the plan — or at least the methods being used.
May said she hasn’t yet spoken to any residents of Sidney Island who narrowly approved the eradication plan by 52 per cent earlier this year.
She said the four First Nations in her riding are in support of the deer-eradication plan and their support holds a lot of weight in this era of Truth and Reconciliation.
“I’m not diving into one side or another. I want to take a reasonable approach to this to see if there are some solutions,” she said. “There might not be anything I can do [to stop it], but I do want to hear from people and take a good look at any possible solutions.”
Critics of the deer kill say Parks Canada has only a broad estimate of the number of fallow deer on the island — between 300 and 900 animals — and that no formal counts by scientists have ever been done. They claim sustained managed hunting on Sidney Island over the past decade has thinned to population of fallow deer to fewer than 300.
A UBC study in 2019 also says vegetation on the Island had also increased by as much as 30% as the hunting continued.
Milne said data from the hunt since 2019 have showed about 90 deer have been taken each year since then — including 79 so far this year, but no research has been done of how much the vegetation has recovered. As a resident, he believes the vegetation has been coming back as the population of fallow deer decreases.
“So why are we doing this then? Is it necessary to spend all this money?”
Ord said it’s an emotional issue that has divided Sidney Island.
“It’s a shame, really,” she said. “For me it really changes the face of the Island both with my neighbours and the wildlife. The bald eagles and the deer are part of the island and why we chose to live on the island. It’s wild. It’s free. It’s beautiful and [this hunt] is going to hurt the residents.”
Milne believes the hunt will drag on longer than two years.
“They think they’re going to get all the deer, but look at the tree cover, and the salal is dense everywhere. The deer can go down to ground for days and days at a time.”
Milne said the second phase of Parks Canada’s plan next winter is to put up kilometres of fencing and divide the island into zones, then use dogs to herd the remaining deer and shoot them all.
“That’s one of the reasons they will kill every deer, not just fallow,” said Milne. “That’s going to be hard for us and there’s going to be an awful lot of people who did vote for this not knowing what’s really going to happen.”
Ord said “that’s four or five months of on-the-ground fenced hunting, seven days a week. For the people who are there, it’s horrifying.”
Janice McLeod, who lives eight months a year on Sidney Island and has been involved in the deer issue for 20 years, supports the eradication.
“In my heart I’m an environmentalist,” she said. “I believe that if the deer are not eradicated … our island will become like Mandarte Island [a mostly bare island in Haro Strait]. There’s nothing there. Portland Island, where the deer have been gone for 40 years, is what we on Sidney Island should look like. There’s lots of trees and shrubs and growth.”
More than 18,000 people have signed a widely circulated petition calling for the killing to be cancelled.
