Letter to the Editor

Liz White, a founder and board member of the Animal Alliance of Canada, also leads the Animal Alliance Voters Party, a federal political party registered on December 10, 2005, with the aim of allowing donors to receive a tax credit. White ran unsuccessfully for election in Toronto in 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2015. She co-authored a bill that called for animals to be regarded as “living property.” The bill died in the Senate. [Wikipedia.org]

How did Cranbrook get into a joint venture with such an extreme party? Former Mayor Wayne Stetski can best answer: “I am part of a committee that is looking to get translocations underway because the new science . . . tells us that it can be and has been done successfully.”

This little group has its own vocabulary of terms, with ”cruel” and “inhumane” covering all human actions on wildlife that they do not bless. They all appear to be vegetarians. White focuses on hunting and human wildlife conflict, and fundraising.

The full-page ads (Townsman) Dec. 3, Jan. 14 and Jan. 18 demonstrate that truth, facts and evidence mean little to them. The ad states culls are expensive and refers to the city’s 2015 culling of four deer at a cost of over $5,000 each. But they left out the fact that the cull was small due to the nets being cut—a crime yet to be solved.

Their ad and letters demonstrate they are ill-informed, misinformed and uninformed. Kathy Wilson on e-KNOW commented: “Adopting a non-lethal management program would have satisfied people on both sides of the aisle.”

Translocation has been tried 100 times in 47 US states and found to be cruel and a failure. Wilson ignores those who follow and apply the scientific method for problem solving and who are completely different from those who are emotion driven.

When Colleen Bailey (e-KNOW, Jan. 13) calls culls inhumane, wasteful and irresponsible, she hasn’t a clue.  Google ‘Town and Country Missouri’ for a clear case of translocation failure. There are hundreds of studies online from 48 states—including university cities like Princeton (NJ), Iowa City (IA), Solon (OH), North Oaks (MN)—that failed to act because of emotion. Now the only way for them and 50 other municipalities has been to bring in sharpshooters who took out 625 deer in Princeton, 700 in Iowa City and 1,002 in Solon. Prince George County, MD and Mount Lebanon, PA, have begun 2016 using police sharpshooters. I call on Cranbrook’s Deer Protection Committee to please make available one bona fide research report supporting their claims.

On humaneness (BC Urban Ungulate Conflict Analysis, p. 77):  As stated by Conover (2002) the biological realities of capture and relocation are quite different from the public perception of “they lived happily ever after, just somewhere else.”

Capture and relocation can be extremely stressful for the animals. They can suffer high rates of capture-related injuries, mortalities, and capture myopathy causing debilitation and death following release. Beringer, in the Wildlife Society Bulletin [30(3) 767-774] reports on the efficacy of translocation. That is the reason wildlife officials in BC have not been involved in translocations.

Former city councillor Gerry Warner said, “We did a survey and studied the problem, which didn’t do a hell of a lot of good either.” Gerry, that city survey showed 70% in favour of a cull and informed the democratic-minded council to push for the people—net cutting, etc. notwithstanding.

Warner stated he has difficulty believing mayor and council would approve a clandestine deer cull—while telling the public they were going to translocate deer instead of killing them. Warner’s difficulty is understandable, as none of it is true. Thus, Warner’s uncalled for apology is moot.

Warner says: “Once again Cranbrook’s name has been darkened from coast-to- coast-to-coast.” Do you really think the 900 US cities that have culled have lost tourism?

William G. Hills,

Cranbrook

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