Victory for Invermere Deer Prote

Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

Judge rules in favour of IDPS

June 6, 2012 Invermere Valley Echo

Members of the Invermere Deer Protection Society (IDPS) have won a major court battle against the District of Invermere (DOI) in the latest chapter of the Invermere deer cull saga.

The DOI had made an application to dismiss the civil lawsuit filed against the district in February for its deer protection bylaw permitting a cull and to recover legal costs from the IDPS; however, on Tuesday, May 29, a Supreme Court of British Columbia judge ruled in favour of the IDPS, meaning they are free to continue with their suit to challenge the DOI Urban Deer Management Program.

The district had unsuccessfully argued the lawsuit was now a moot issue as the deer cull permit had already expired, but the judge agreed with the point made by the IDPS that the 2011 council decision to reduce Invermere urban deer numbers to 50 carried implications well into 2014.

“The district is saying that there’s no point in continuing the lawsuit because the cull is over and the permit is expired, but there’s nothing stopping them from killing deer in 2013,” IDPS president Devin Kazakoff told The Valley Echo.

IDPS lawyer Rebeka Breder said the judge agreed with her argument that the lawsuit was not a moot issue. However, there was another reason the judge had stated, which Breder felt was especially important.

“If I were to take anything away from this decision, one of the reasons that he decided not to dismiss [the lawsuit] is because he found that the issues that we’re dealing with have much broader implications in B.C. when it comes to animal control,” Breder said. “I think that’s key, because there aren’t any precedents right now in B.C. dealing with how much public consultation, if any, is required in animal control matters.”

Breder feels this case could set exactly that precedent, and believes it could have Canada-wide implications if the court’s verdict is in their favour when the case is finally heard, likely in the fall or potentially sometime next year.

The IDPS (formerly known as the Invermere Deer Protection Organization, or IDPO) sprang up shortly before Invermere was set to begin their deer cull, which took place in February. The cull was one of several deer control measures council first agreed upon at a DOI meeting in August 2011. District council made the decision based on the recommendations made by the DOI Urban Deer Management Committee, but Kazakoff said the information obtained by that committee is suspect, in particular regarding the overall deer count numbers. “We’re challenging the bylaw based on the fact that they adopted the deer committees recommendations, which were not done scientifically and were not done properly,” Kazakoff said.

Kazakoff, as a former member of the deer committee before being removed by the district, said that from his firsthand experience the counts were done by unqualified persons and in some cases, he claims, even by children. He also believes the count should be held in the spring or summer, as opposed to the winter months. Stan Markham, who was named the new chair of the deer committee at a DOI meeting on May 22, was not available for comment under the committee's terms of reference set out by council.

“The first and foremost thing is to have the proper research done by the proper people,” Kazakoff said. “We advocate for non-lethal solutions if it is determined there are too many deer in town, which we don’t even know if that’s the case.”

DOI chief administrative officer Chris Prosser said there are further scheduled counts planned for later this year, but declined to comment on the IDPS claims that the count was improperly done. “They aren’t scientists either,” Prosser said.

“I know that it’s been tossed around that we’re looking for money, but that’s not the case at all, we’re not asking for money,” Kazakoff said. “What happens here could have implications for the whole province and the rest of Canada too. Of course we’ve all been on edge, as a lot hinged on what the judge decided, so we’re all extremely happy about it and now we can move on. It’s a huge win for the organization and it’s a great feeling to know that we’re still making a difference out there, and that we can still stop these culls.”

Iain Hunter: Executing Deer Not Dignified Behaviour

June 30, 2013 Iain Hunter / Times Colonist

All species react to danger because they must. Man reacts to inconveniences because he may. Dandelion reminded me of that. She was a dark-eyed young doe on the path to the vegetable garden, and when I advanced, she stood her ground, which I’d thought was my ground, and flicked one ear. Nothing else.

She seemed to be waiting for me to say something, so I did: “Welcome to my garden, sweetie. But you’re really not wanted here. As your name implies, you’re an invasive species, and I say this in the kindest possible way, but you should go now.”

She nodded — I swear she did — and took one dainty step back. The setting sun behind traced the veins in her ears, her delicate nostrils flared and we stood together, becalmed, beholding.

This encounter, I’m ashamed to say, has not been usual this spring. Marauding deer in twos and threes and fours have skipped down the driveway, hopped over futile fences and leaped over the rockery with gay abandon. They’ve chomped the tree peonies, ravaged the roses, nipped off the flowers of the Iberian cranesbill as soon as they appeared, and even nibbled at the new blackberry shoots.

When I’ve caught them, I’ve rushed at them waving my arms and howling like a gorilla in heat and blowing a deafening device that I understand has been banned at organized sporting events. It was my neighbour, Larry, who after watching these territorial displays, observed that the deer, albeit in retreat, showed more dignity than did I in driving them off. If any being is concerned with dignity, it should be the human kind, shouldn’t it — nature’s apex predator, a being holding dominion over all others with biblical sanction?

Some in my community have chosen more dignified techniques to drive deer away, such as movement-activated sprinklers and chemical repellants. But individual efforts are not good enough, apparently. Deer are considered, even by those who deliberately grow what they like most to eat, a municipal and regional problem.

And, of course, when public money is called for, cheapest is best. Culls have been approved elsewhere and are now under consideration by the mayor and corporation of Oak Bay, where Dandelion roams unaware of proposals to trap and cage her overnight and put a bolt through her head at sunup. Would that collective, officially approved solution be any more dignified than my making a dervish-like spectacle of myself in trying to drive off my plants’ predators?

How would this crude execution bestow dignity — in the sense of worth or honour — on those on whose behalf it would be carried out? In times of crisis, as this seems to be, there isn’t time to consider how collective decisions reflect on those making them or those on behalf of whom they’re made. Human beings are as expert at getting rid of nuisances as they are at creating them — souls need not be engaged.

I wonder if Dandelion knows that. I wonder if she thinks, like Holly in Watership Down, that “men will never rest ’til they’ve spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.” ************

I’ve done my best to talk to that doe as a member of one invasive species to a member of another. I want her to know that I want to get on with her as best I can. I haven’t chased her away anymore. I’ve tried to encourage her to eat plants that matter to me less than others, or to stick to those that will survive her browsing. She hasn’t seemed to get it.

I haven’t seen Dandelion lately. I miss her gazing from the bottom of the garden as if sizing up the bush for a birthing place. I hoped she’d stay. There’s a lot of rubbish talked about the danger posed by deer. Carcasses by the roadside show where real danger lies. “Animals don’t behave like men,” says a Watership Down rabbit. “If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. “They have dignity and animality.”

Animal cruelty intolerable, evil, sinful, and criminal