DEER by Ralph Bice

From Wednesday, March 2, 1977

I had not intended to write about deer but on the late news last night my old friend Leo Bernier, formerly Minister of Natural Resources, made a statement that the deer situation in central Ontario was in bad shape. I do not know who the information was intended for as anyone who lives in the so called central area knows that the deer herd has been in really bad shape for quite a few years. Also, Mr. Bernier has had many letters and some meetings about the deer, and he talks about it as if it had just suddenly happened.

Then the usual excuses. No cover, no feed and a few other reasons why there are no deer. Hunting groups have been asking for better protection for the deer for at least 15 years. I personally have been at many a meeting with the Standing Committee when this group used to meet with hunters and other groups once a year. We did get a lot off our chests but the results were nil. So often the meeting could have ended with just being told to go back home as they were right and we were wrong. And this by people who sit in an office miles away. Promises and more promises.

When, in the early sixties, those of us who were travelling the waterways in Algonquin Park noticed that there were only a small potion of the deer herd left and mentioned this to Queens Park we were told we were wrong. Again by someone who had not been there. The deer disappeared from along Highway 60, which goes through the Park and the excuse was that they had just moved back from the road. Those of us who worked ‘back from the road’ knew this to be wrong but who would believe an old guide along side a biologist.

Someone came up with the idea that there should be a study made on wolves and we had that still controversial wolf study in Algonquin Park. So many stories came from that study, some of them very far fetched. There have been two books written on that study. There was not too much that was new, except that they, the wolves, needed so much meat. By either of these books, if you take time to figure it out, the then 300 wolves in Algonquin Park were killing in excess of 6,000 deer, 200 moose, and 3,500 beaver every year. One would think that this would have meant a much closer control on wolves but instead they were put on the protected list. Then someone came up with the idea that they should hold wolf howl safaris and I do believe many people enjoyed them. Many believe it was just an executed plan by the wolf lovers to create more friends for those predators.

A few years back someone poisoned three wolves on a lake in Algonquin Park. And such an uproar. Nothing about the 80-100 deer that had been spared but that there were fewer wolves to provide entertainment for the next summer. There is no doubt that there are 50 people who would like to see some deer along the road for every one who wants to hear wolves howl.

Then the wolf bounty was dropped. If you checked what was being paid for with the wolf bounty against what is not being paid for (those wolf control programs) it will be noted that the bounty system was very much cheaper and took more wolves.

So many of the excuses we have been fed the last few years are based on biological theories rather than fact. For a great many years it was hard to detect a little bit of interest among those who were in charge on the question of the diminishing deer herd. Last spring we had a meeting about deer and got the usual brush off. Again we were told there was no feed, no shelter. We invited anyone to come and promised to take them into the woods and show them both food and shelter. No one came.

Everyone who was in the woods those two very bad winters, 1959-60 and 1960-61 knows they were very hard on deer. But somehow or other we had plenty of deer the years before. Then we are told no food, no shelter. How could a woods change so rapidly in three years?

About 1972 a number of deer yarded in my trapping area and they did well. Only, late in March, the wolves found them and that was it. I know of three small yards completely wiped out.

The deer disappeared almost to the point of extinction in the mid twenties. I am talking of the area between Highway #11 and the Park. So many hunt camps did not put in an appearance. At that time when you saw a deer track you told someone about it. In a whole summer of travel in the Park you seldom saw a deer. Now we did not have a whole flock of biologists to tell us what was wrong but many of us thought that they had gone to the areas where those recent big fires had created a lot of food. But they started to return in the early thirties and in a few years we had good hunting again. These deer returned to a woods that was exactly the same as when they had left and there had been no fires or lumber operations in most of the area.

Shortening the deer season, unless it is closed altogether, will not be the answer. Controlling the number of hunters might help. But as long as licenses are sold to everyone for any area hunting will continue to be poor. In my own area, McCraney township, there were perhaps 80-100 hunters in 1975; which is not bad for 27 square miles. They took a total of one deer. This year, with so many moose hunters, there were at least 250 hunters and they killed, beside many moose, a total of TWO deer.

So, all hunters will be waiting to see if there will be any real efforts made to do something about the deer.