Urbane urban deer may signal evolving intellect

Deer aren’t renowned for their intelligence, but in Nova Scotia are they showing signs of getting smarter?

Suspicion of the limited mental capacity of deer derives from their propensity to wander densely onto highly-travelled roads and just stand there. But recent changes in herd tactics suggest the possibility of a new acuity.

Nova Scotia’s horde of suburban and town-dwelling deer remain oblivious to traffic. They still stand in small groups in the middle of the street and look, with hollow deer eyes, back at immobilized automobiles that could accelerate to sudden deer demise. But now, it’s as if they know that the social sanction attached to dispatching a doe will inhibit the most impatient driver.

Horn-blowing and engine revving appear more to bewilder, even amuse, than disturb them. Their refusal to budge is reminiscent of neighbourhood bad kids, who wouldn’t disrupt road hockey for cars until there was a natural stoppage of play — a goal scored or the ball bounding off the waiting motorist’s windshield.

A sizable segment of Nova Scotia’s white-tailed deer population has congregated in the new suburban areas of the Halifax mainland and in every garden in Truro, making the town the perfect laboratory for study of urban deer behaviour and civic response to invasion.

Does urbanization offer hints to the deer’s evolving intelligence? They’ve taken up residence where they are safe from hunters and certain to find the protection of soft-hearted innocents who can summon a tear at the mere mention of Bambi.

The most proffered explanation for deer romping blithely through the new, near burbs around Halifax is urban sprawl, which intruded on their natural habitat. That seems logical. So, what’s the story in Truro, where the deer infestation rivals the rats of Hamelin?

There’s been some growth spreading out from the town, but just beyond the development there are hectares of deerfriendly forests and fields.

Yet, the deer turned inward, on the town, and now graze with impunity on everything from tomato plants to mop head hydrangeas.

The townsfolk are bitterly at odds, like the Montagues and Capulets, and civic authorities have chosen Hamlet as their muse. To cull or not to cull, that is — and seems likely to remain — the question.

Hoisted on the antlers of the staggering dilemma, the town jumped to futile debate on how to ease deer congestion.

Live-trapping and relocation was suggested. But any trapping was deemed barbaric by the wellorganized deer lobby, which also took poison off the table. Birth control was floated, but there seems confusion over how to get several hundred doe to swallow a daily pill, never mind trying to sheath a buck.

Gunshots do ring out from time to time. These are discharged by the unfortunate constabulary called to end the suffering of a white-tail wounded by a motorist whose manic, life-threatening swerve was insufficient to miss a doddering deer.

Other towns around the province experience nuisance deer, but none to the extent of Truro. Nevertheless, the question is valid: Is Truro just the first to host herds?

Nova Scotia’s annual deer hunt has dwindled. There was once venison in every pot. Hunters bagged 50,000 or 60,000 deer annually. Last year, they took fewer than 8,000.

Some who take up the cause of the defenseless deer will tell you they have a right to be here, as indeed they do. But these misanthropic non-historians cross the line when they claim the deer were here first.

The white-tailed deer was introduced to Nova Scotia in the 1890s. Truro, on the other hand, traces its history back to 1759, and was incorporated as a town in 1875. The people were there first.

Like Pharaoh, Truro can seek divine intervention. But that didn’t help Egypt with the frogs or any of the other six deadly plagues. A moratorium on gardens could force the deer to seek greener towns, but that risks a taxpayer revolt, and municipal disharmony, by passing the problem to New Glasgow or Amherst.

Truro could consider a motorcycle rally, and cull two species some folks find an annoyance in one swoop. Or, they could embrace their plight and market themselves as the hub for ruminant former wildlife.

Whatever course Truro and its resident deer choose, the plight or prosperity of the urbane urban deer remains a phenomenon worth watching, for fun if not insight.