A Mayne Island group has successfully recruited regional officials to help tackle an animal problem there, as the Capital Regional District (CRD) board will be urging the B.C. government for sustained funding to control Mayne’s invasive fallow deer.
Michael Kilpatrick, representing the Mayne Island Fallow Deer Committee, lobbied the CRD’s Electoral Area Committee Wednesday, Nov. 13, explaining the discussion was not surrounding black-tailed deer, the island’s native species, but a now-invasive European deer.
“These deer were introduced to Mayne Island 30 years ago under a permit from the province,” said Kilpatrick. “It was an agricultural permit to farm and raise the deer as game.”
Some of those deer escaped –– or possibly were released –– almost immediately. Kilpatrick said there were about 50 roaming non-native deer counted just six years after the farm operation opened, and while it was unclear whether they were deliberately let out or found a way through fencing, the population today stands between 1,100 and 1,800 animals.
Given Mayne’s relatively small size –– 2,300 hectares, or 21 square kilometres –– the impact has been felt across the island. Kilpatrick shared photographs of landscapes turned to what he called “green desert,” where grass, saplings and even ground cover for native birds have dropped dramatically due to deer browsing.
“This was originally a provincial problem,” said Kilpatrick, “but 30 days after their escape, they become designated as wildlife –– and because they’re considered game, the province will not [automatically] recognize them as being invasive.”
Kilpatrick said Mayne Island’s residents had tried for years to gain traction with the federal government, which had indicated it was not their matter to address, and had consulted lawyers on whether the farm’s original owners could be held responsible –– a course of action unlikely to yield results, he said.
Some changes in provincial legislation will be necessary to allow for large-scale culling of the deer, Kilpatrick said, noting that hunting with a rifle is banned on Mayne Island.
“These sorts of things have to be negotiated through the province,” he said, “and we have to get to a level where we can negotiate. But right now, we can’t get in the door.”
Electoral area directors worried the problem could easily spread to other islands, and agreed the letter should emphasize both the environmental and economic destruction the deer leave in their paths, as Mayne farmers struggle to keep crops from hungry deer populations that have coalesced into large, distinct roaming herds –– and acknowledged that cramped animals are at increased risk of diseases, some of which could spread to livestock.
“We should have dealt with it 30 years ago,” said Kilpatrick. “But we should deal with it now.”