Parks Canada halts controversial deer cull on B.C. island, seeks 'reimagined solution'

European fallow deer on Sidney Island, north of Victoria. (Parks Canada)

Federal officials have spared the lives of the remaining invasive deer on a small British Columbia island, pausing the final phase of their plan to eradicate the animals in the eleventh hour.

Parks Canada says it granted the reprieve after residents of Sidney Island came forward with concerns that fencing the agency had installed to herd the deer before the cull was ineffective.

Animal protection groups say the fencing was inhumane, causing the deaths of at least two deer that became tangled in the makeshift barriers last month.

The Animal Alliance of Canada and the Animal Protection Party of Canada say the cancellation of the fallow deer cull is "encouraging" for those opposed to the eradication plan and those exposed to the suffering of the deer on the island north of Victoria.

"If the islanders had not exposed to the public the deer caught in the netting, I doubt we would be seeing a pause," Animal Protection party leader Liz White said in a statement Thursday following the release of a video showing island residents working to free a distressed animal caught in the fencing.

"I speak from experience when I say it is highly unusual for Parks Canada to back down from a plan such as deer eradication."

Foreign sharpshooters

Efforts to remove the European fallow deer from the island have been controversial from the start.

Parks Canada controls about 440 hectares of the island, which is home to approximately 12,500 people, as part of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.

In 2021, Parks Canada formed a coalition with local First Nations and some island property owners to devise a plan to round up and kill up to 500 of the invasive animals that had migrated to the island from neighbouring James Island in the 1960s.

The European species was introduced to James Island in 1902 as prey for hunting parties, but soon thrived and threatened the regional ecosystem's native shrubs and seedlings.

The first phase of the cull in December 2023 drew protests as sharpshooters from New Zealand and the United States were hired to gun down the animals from helicopters in the daytime and from the ground at night.

'Most expensive way'

Eighty-four animals were killed in the 10-day operation, including 18 native black-tailed deer, as the cost of the multi-year eradication plan rose to $12 million.

"Parks Canada has dreamed up the most expensive way imaginable of hunting these deer," a spokesperson for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said in May, noting that local hunters had killed 54 deer on the island the previous fall, at no cost to the public.

The second phase of the eradication plan was expected to begin next week and run until late spring with sharpshooters and tracking dogs entering each of the fenced zones and killing the deer trapped inside.

Parks Canada says the pause in the eradication plan "will allow for additional consultations with First Nations and project partners on a reimagined solution to achieve ecosystem restoration."

"Parks Canada would like to thank the partners for their collaboration in advancing conservation efforts in one of the smallest and most at-risk ecosystems in Canada," the agency said in a statement.

Deer contraception proposed

The Animal Protection Party of Canada and the Animal Alliance of Canada are calling on the federal government to "modernize its approach" and consider non-lethal means to manage the invasive deer population.

"Various contraceptive methods have been shown to work well to reduce the numbers of fawns born and must be fully employed for at least three years on Sidney Island before lethal measures are reconsidered," the statement from the animal welfare groups said.

"For too long wildlife have been treated as enemies of the ecosystem of national parks, instead of participants in the habitats where they reside," Barry MacKay, honorary director of the Animal Alliance of Canada, said in the statement.

"Plant life matters, but there are other measures available to protect plants from grazing, and all of those measures should be fully employed."

The wildlife groups say their immediate concern now is with removing several kilometres of netting from the island before more animals are harmed.