Parks Canada defends $12M Sidney Island deer kill, ecological restoration

[Castanet News]

Parks Canada is defending the $12-million price tag for its plan to kill all the fallow deer on Sidney Island as part of an ecological restoration project. The...

[mike trudel]

Sorry but the deer will just swim back and the invasive plants will just grow back if left unchecked

[M-scott]

The firearms used weren't only restricted they are prohibited. The Canadian government has stated that these weapons have no use in hunting yet they pay millions for non Canadians to use them for that exact purpose. If they were unhappy with the amount of deer harvested for free by Canadians they should have set up a program to pay hunters, I have wanted to try fallow deer hunting but I don't have the money to take of work and head to the coast. I know alot of other hunters would have enjoyed the opportunity to help habitat conservation and spend the time outdoors.

[Phoenix2971]

The justification of spending this amount of tax payers money borders on insanity. Deer swim to all the islands & always will. Possibly putting up a sign saying “Don’t swim to this island” would help - that makes about as much sense.

[bcconservative]

Just another waste of taxpayer dollars. This should be punishable. Provide an open season on fallow deer, and give them no bag limit. Local hunters will kill the right deer, provide for their communities with the meat, and they'll use legal firearms while doing it. You want them eradicated? Open season - no tag required. No strain on tax payers.
More government hypocrisy and bureaucracy.

[elimsprint]

These are fallow deer and as such are not native to BC or even Canada so they won't be "swimming over" to the island. I understand the desire to eradicate them but as stated many times, resident hunters could have done just as well or better than the highly paid, prohibited weapon using "professional hunters".

[barry67]

The next phase of the cull is even more ridiculous and wasteful. The plan calls for sectioning the Island into smaller lots using 30 km. of nine ft high aquaculture pen netting. The plan is to use tent pegs to stake to the low ground and adjustable straps to tie the fence to trees. Think about it! How do you roll a ball of netting or pull a section of netting through the bush, or maybe the plan is to drop it from the sky through the tree canopy with a helicopter.

[GordonH]

Should have been handled by BC hunters and First Nations, each weekend “X” amount of tags handed out (half & half).

These 2 groups would have done it for free as long as they are allowed to keep the meat.

[barry67]

More ridiculousness, the 100 pg. planning document allows for killing all deer, (foreign expert marksmen can't tell the difference between the two species) including the native black tail. It goes on to say the native black tail will naturally repopulate. But, the Fallow deer will not. BS. Neighboring privately owned James Island Fallow deer will swim back.

[barry67]

This eradication would not have happened if the BC SPCA had not signed off on the program. The SPCA some how can justify humanely killing a running deer dodging and weaving through the bush with "foreign expert marksmen" spraying them with bullets fired from restricted weapons while chasing them with a loud, vibrating, moving helicopter. I suggest they died because of legs blown off, Jaws blown off or Gut shot. Please re-consider donating to the SPCA.

[WilliamMastop]

My gosh. When I reduce the number of deer killed so as not to include the wrong ones that were killed, that works out to a cost of $12,065 per deer killed. If Parks Canada were to pay a bounty of $5,000 per deer to hunters they'd have a huge savings.

[trajo1]

This is shame on Eby again

[Naabaahii24]

Then the person that made such an expensive decision in Parks Canada , should be fired!
These folks are out of touch with reality. They love to spend taxpayers money, with really bad ideas.
I would not be surprised if their expert analysis, was done by an employee that got a contractor license as well. No different than the ArriveCan...contracts.
Or they arrive to such plan by having a big meeting at a hotel with free lunches?
Why can they allow Canadian hunters to do it for free?
If they kill too many deers, they can donate the meat to the food banks.
It will cost taxpayers NOTHING!

[talbot]

The Best Part about this Incompetent Debacle is your 12 Million dollars is going to Snippers from the USA and New Zealand ???? One would think you would employ Canadians and then the government could get back some of OUR Money in Taxes And Create More Jobs .

[Nedroj]

Bunch of *bleep* *bleep* in Government. Sorry for the language but there is nothing else that can describe something this asinine.