Urban deer bring pesky problems across Nova Scotia
Most people love seeing wildlife walk through their urban neighbourhood but that cute version of Bambi bounding through backyards can be a problem.
Mike Boudreau, human-wildlife conflict biologist with the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, said there are serious repercussions to whitetailed deer wandering metropolitan streets, roaming in from parkland and any green corridors in subdivisions or fringe areas.
Besides damage from car strikes, both to vehicles and the animals, there’s a very real threat to human health, as deer carry more than one variety of ticks, including the blacklegged ones that carry Lyme disease.
“The higher the population, the potential for more ticks. So you have to keep that in mind as well.”
With ticks, you don’t have to come into direct contact with the deer to pick one up. They can leave the deer and climb up grass blades, particularly if there’s an empty lot full of tall, regenerated grass, Boudreau said.
One of the things deer do well is eat plants and that’s where another problem comes in: They feast on gardens, flower beds and decorative plants.
“They hammer them, basically,” Boudreau said. “And there are some places they can’t even grow flowers or certain varieties of flowers like hostas, for instance; (deer) will just mow them to the ground.”
Then there’s also a cascade effect of other, more dangerous encroachments from predators.
Boudreau cited the nursery rhyme There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, which relates the consequences when the character swallows progressively bigger creatures to deal with those she earlier took in.
A similar process is true of prey species like deer. Predators will follow them and that could be dangerous to household pets.
“Coyotes are one of those … Bobcats will take deer,” he said, although he added they’re more likely to take the bounty of rats that come along with the human propensity to produce garbage and fill compost bins. “But bobcats and coyotes do have the ability and will take deer when the conditions are right. If it’s easier for them to take a deer than a rat, then they’re going to go for the deer or the dog or the cat.”
Boudreau did not have data on whether the deer population is on the rise but he was able to say his department has fielded increasingly more complaints in the last 5-10 years of interactions with deer from more urban areas around the province.
“We’re getting more reports, and more concerns, from places like Shelburne, New Glasgow, the Town of Yarmouth a couple of years ago, and HRM and Truro.”
It’s gotten so bad in Truro that the town has had public meetings and sought suggestions on how to handle the herd. A woman was even fined for breaking a town bylaw regarding feeding of wild animals after feeding deer in 2015.
“We, the Department of Natural Resources wildlife division, has been working with them to come up with ideas and ways of helping them cope with increased deer numbers within the town limits,” Boudreau said. “We’re still waiting for the council to come back to us with suggestions. In their case, we offered remedies on how to help control the numbers and we’re still waiting for a response.”
Truro’s Victoria Park features plenty of good habitat for deer, he said.
“In the rural areas they don’t get that comfortable because there’s always the potential for negative association, i.e. there’s a hunting season. People actively hunt them. You can’t do that in the city or in the centre of a town. So there’s no negative association.”
The department does have the option to issue human-wildlife conflict stamps, or licenses to remove deer in some areas “that it is feasible to do so, i.e., there are distances that are acceptable and that kind of thing,” he said.
When it comes down to it, though, the department’s basic recommendation about deer is not to feed them, not to corner them, don’t approach them and don’t encourage them.