There are too many deer at the Waterford Deer Park.
Right now, Norfolk County staff is reporting that the park is on track to have over 100 deer’s in the enclosed area very shortly, and that comes with its share of problems.
With this many deer in a small area, there is a risk of diseases being spread quickly through this population.
The natural vegetation in the enclosure will likely not meet the needs of the animals as well.
While the deer are well fed by the community, they still need to have regular meals provided to them, and the amount of food needed has also gone up dramatically over the years.
After staff consulted other agencies like OMAFRA, they have come up with a population control strategy they hope will remedy these issues.
Bill Cridland, General Manager of Norfolk’s Operations Division, told us via a phone call that because the deer are an introduced species to the area, they are not allowed to be released into the wild.
There are safety concerns regarding transportation as well, as the Deer Park Committee originally thought about a farm or park that they could be moved to.
Aside from the risk of transporting these animals, there is a decline in interest from the groups that would traditionally take in these animals.
With this in mind, the plan would be to have a several de-population events over several months.
A vet would be on hand, and the remains of the deer following this “event” would be sent off to a meat processing plant.
Only a small amount of deer would be affected at a time.
That meat would then go back to the committee overseeing the deer park, with some initial ideas being it could be given out locally to groups who could use it.
They are also looking at the possibility of selling some of the meat to various agencies to offset costs associated with this program.
Council approved this strategy on Tuesday.
Written by: Matt LeBlanc