LETTER: Politics play a role in deer population
By Barry Brandow
I am sending you a letter that appeared recently in the Grand Forks Gazette and the online newspaper, The Boundary Sentinel.
The letter is applicable to every community in the province who has witnessed a significant increase in deer populations within urban settings!
It is a sad time for all of us in our province who care about the province’s wildlife resource.
If you examine the urban deer cull initiatives you will discover that the bureaucracy connected to wildlife management have become irrelevant, nothing less than political pawns of the BC Liberal Government whose deregulation agenda of maximizing revenue and jobs at the expense of sustainable responsible governance has resulted in the disappearance of transparency and accountability.
There is one question of many that may well come forward in the near future that will underscore how hollow and vacant wildlife management has become.
What will be the political consequences for all those politicians, bureaucrats and stakeholders who have been responsible sum and total for the collapse of the province’s deer population should there be a serious mauling or death by a cougar?
The deer has always been the primary prey species of the cougar and most deer alive today in the province are on or immediately adjacent to private property!
One thing for sure if the people of BC knew what I know, Premier Christy Clark would have no choice but to fire Minister Steve Thomson.
Barry Brandow
