PLAN TO MOVE DEER STALLS

A plan to relocate deer from a Montreal-area park has fallen through after an ethics committee deemed the strategy unsafe. About half the population of white-tailed deer in Michel-chartrand park were slated to be killed because officials said the animals’ numbers were twice what the park on Montreal’s south shore can support. But the City of Longueuil relented and moved to relocate the deer to a sanctuary following protests from citizens. The relocation plan submitted by an animal rescue group was analyzed by a veterinary ethics committee, which concluded the strategy wouldn’t work. Ethics committee head Jean-pierre Vaillancourt said the plan had several problems at every step in the proposed process to move the animals. He said the group’s strategy would have endangered the lives of deer and their handlers.