Wayward elk killed ‘with deep regret’
Sniper shoots 800-pound animal after cute story turns into potentially dangerous situation
It began as the cute story of the day: mating season and an adult male elk was looking for love in all the wrong places as he visited Centretown early Tuesday morning.
By midday, it had evolved into something of a nuisance as main city arteries and then the O-Train were shut down.
But by mid-afternoon, when it was finally and definitively resolved, half the city seemed to be asking: did an Ottawa police sniper really need to shoot that elk?
The elk, estimated at about 800 pounds, was first spotted walking along a ditch near Albert Street and City Centre Avenue around 7:35 a.m. by a passerby who called 911.
From the start of the day, police had to manage the risk involved to the public. The elk, which not did have any tags, was clearly wild and was in the heart of the city. Given its size, the antlered beast could pose a very real threat, not only to drivers but to people who might get too close.
The good news, it seemed, was that the elk had moved to a treed area, fenced in on most sides, near the City Centre building. It was about as good a spot as police could hope for in the middle of the city.
As police made their plans, and requested help from NCC officers who have equipment for tranquillizing animals, the city was still having fun with the story of the elk, lost on its way to the stag party. By midmorning he even had his own spoof Twitter account (Elk-Patry, which drew hundreds of followers).
“Is the O-train running today?” it tweeted. “Been waiting like 20mins at Bayview Station.”
Ironically, the O-Train was later closed because of the elk. And Albert and Scott streets were closed between Preston and Bayview as police, city staff and NCC all tried to deal with the situation.
Some people who gathered at the scene wondered what was taking so long.
“If it was my uncle, he’d have shot it by now,” Alan Gustafson joked of his hunting relative, not realizing that a few minutes later police would do just that.
In fact, right up until 2:07 p.m., when a loud shot rang out in the area, the dozens of people gathered around to watch the situation unfold assumed that the elk would eventually be tranquillized. It came as a shock that the animal had been killed.
Ottawa Police Acting Inspector John McGetrick explained afterward that NCC officers had made many attempts to get within range to use their tranquillizer guns but failed.
“We tried all humane means,” McGetrick said.
As the day progressed, he said, the animal became more of a risk.
“The animal was showing increased signs of aggression. Subject matter experts made it clear that if that elk bolted, which it had the potential to do, it would be a severe public safety issue for folks in the community. So with deep regret — and it was very unfortunate — the decision was made to destroy the animal as humanely as possible.”
McGetrick said officers didn’t like the outcome, after containing the elk, working with partners to tranquillize and relocate.
“We feel really, really bad that we weren’t able to do that. That’s what we wanted to do. It’s a very hard decision to destroy the animal but public safety is paramount and there was no other choice. We waited as long as we could.” The risks were too high, he said. “I can’t emphasize it enough: this is all about public safety. If an 800-pound elk gets running in the streets the consequences could be disastrous.”
Even the attempt to tranquillize involved some risk, McGetrick said.
“Please keep in mind that once tranquillized, it would still move around. There was still some risk with that decision. That was a risk I was willing to take, but the situation was worsening and we unfortunately had no choice.”
Kate Davis, a biologist who lives nearby and watched the scene unfold, said she was extremely surprised and upset by the shooting of the animal.
“Please don’t let anything like this happen again,” was her message for the city.
Diane Carrise, another witness who works in the area, said she thought it was “very wrong” that the elk was shot.
“I understand they’re upset,” McGetrick said of the public reaction. “The officers involved are upset. No one wanted to do this … I completely empathize with anyone who’s upset. We’re all upset.”
Police Chief Charles Bordeleau added his own comment that “no member of the Ottawa Police Service enjoys a task such as this,” but said he supported the decision that was made at the scene.
Venturing inside Ottawa has proved a fatal mistake for animals in the past.
After two incidents in 2010 when police shot and killed a moose that wandered into town, the city started working on a wildlife strategy that was supposed to make sure everybody knows who’s responsible for what when a large animal runs into a populated area.
The final product, a plan widely panned by conservation groups but approved unanimously by city council last July, spells out that on city or private property, managing wild animals is a police responsibility, and on federal land it’s up to the National Capital Commission.
“The City’s first responsibility when large wild mammals appear in suburban and urban areas is to remove any direct threat to public safety,” the strategy says.
In practice, that typically means that the city will call in a marksman who’ll try to shoot the loose animal with a tranquillizer gun, but he or she only gets a couple of tries before the animal panics and has to be shot dead. An animal that’s running amok is hard to hit with a dart and tranquillizers aren’t much use against a creature that’s in full-on fight-or-flight mode.
The strategy also called for the city to potentially hire a full-time “wildlife resource officer” who’d have expertise in everything from elk at City Centre to wild turkeys in Barrhaven to beavers plugging up stormwater ponds in Stittsville.
Because that would cost money, though, city council agreed to put it off till after the next election in 2014.
Though a possible partial answer might be to equip and train police on how to use tranquillizers, Chief Bordeleau said there is a protocol in place and police defer to experts who deal with large animals regularly.
“Animal behaviour is a complex issue and I am not prepared to start training our officers on that when we have experts available to us,” Bordeleau said.