The Peninsula News Review article of March 1, pertaining to the deer cull, made interesting reading.
So, each municipality will be defining their own rules for control. The District of North Saanich sounds like the only sane bunch in the picture, permitting crop protection, but against wholesale slaughter.
Will these hunters in other districts be qualified marksman, tested for their proficiency, or will animals be limping off into the bush with arrows and bullets embedded in their bodies?
Anyone who has witnessed a cull will know there is plenty of blood and guts; a scene of pure mayhem.
In 1953 a virus was illegally introduced into an estate in West Sussex, England to eradicate wild rabbits. The government at that time refused to make deliberate spread of the disease illegal. Myxomatosis wiped out 95 per cent of the rabbit population.
I lived in Sussex at that time: the countryside was covered with rotting carcasses, rabbits with their eyes hanging from their sockets. A painful, hideous demise.
Life is hard for the farmer, long days, and small reward. They deserve extra subsidies to help with deer control and the government need to address that fact, instead of initiating yet another study.
As for the homeowners who are irritated their plants are on the deer menu, put up a fence or grow stuff they do not like.
The battle is constant in my garden. Tulip, Hyacinth ... all chewed to ground level. At Christmas, a large Kingfisher swallowed my six, eight year old goldfish. I forgot to put the screen over my pond.
Upset? Yes. But the animals and birds were here long before me and will be long after I am gone.
Margaret J. Jestico
Central Saanich