This is just one of the deer that has been hanging out around Truro. (Submitted by the Town of Truro)

This is just one of the deer that has been hanging out around Truro.
Photo Credit: (Submitted by the Town of Truro)

Oh, deer: Nova Scotia town mulls its options in dealing with Bambi invasion

The town of Truro in central Nova Scotia has a very cute pest problem, but a problem nevertheless.

It’s been overrun by white-tailed deer. There are deer in its parks, deer in parking lots, even deer in the downtown core.

“We have several urban herds in town, and when I say herds, it’s anywhere between five to 15 animals in any one location,” Truro’s chief administrator, Mike Dolter, said in a telephone interview with Radio Canada International. “They are interspersed throughout the community and some of them right in the downtown core.”

The town’s green areas and parks have become a big attraction for the deer and a conduit to the downtown core over the last few years, Dolter said.

“There has been increasing interaction between property owners and deer,” Dolter said. “Some people like them being in town and others not as much because they are creating property damage, there have been some vehicle accidents.”

Many residents are starting to feel that the situation has to be dealt with in some way because “it’s starting to get a little bit out of hand,” he said.

The town is holding an information and consultation session on Tuesday evening to educate the population about the deer problem and look for solutions.

One of the most controversial solutions – and the one that attracted the most media attention – being considered by municipal officials is a cull or a controlled hunt, but only as a last resort if nothing else works, Dolter said.

Officials are also looking at stricter enforcement of the no-feeding bylaw to discourage deer from being in town, potential mass feeding them outside the town to draw them away, he said.

“We’re also looking at options of potential contraceptive,” Dolter said. “There is a contraceptive that we just became aware of that might work, it was used in the United States.”

However, town officials will have to talk to provincial and federal officials to make sure that they are actually allowed to bring in the contraceptive into Canada, Dolter said.

In the U.S. where this contraceptive was used deer population dropped by about 50 per cent over 10 years, he said.

The town is also encouraging its residents to use motion-activated sprinklers and fences to keep away the deer.

“The other option too, depending what the public expresses to our council, is whether or not we stay with the status quo and people go by their own means,” Dolter said.

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