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Kootenay Crust
Deer bringing out worst in people
As someone who has spent two decades covering societal goings on, the one thing that never ceases to stop me in my tracks and make me want to start smashing thick skulls together is the lackadaisical nature of people; the apathy of the masses, if you will. The types who don’t pay attention to anything until they are suddenly rocked awake by reality.
I refer to it as the ‘beagle syndrome.’ That is where one beagle barks about something and the rest of the pack start to bay uncontrollably even though none of them have a clue as to exactly what it is they are barking about.
Municipal politics is a giant sandbox filled with landmines laid by the apathetic. And the deer cull issue that is grinding through our region is a classic example.
It’s been like a ball of wet, sticky snow rolling downhill. The ball was wadded up and sent downhill in Cranbrook when the city conducted its cull of 25 deer. It rolled downhill to Kimberley and began to mass up substantially as that city conducted its 100 deer cull.
By the time the snowball hit Invermere, it was fat and sassy and full of piss and vinegar and its sheer enormity has dragged the sleepy from their apathetic slumber and they’re now railing mightily.
Invermere council and staff have become, in the eyes of some, complete monsters for daring to take care of a long-standing problem – urban deer.
Damn them all to hell.
A passionate group of residents, bolstered by the shouts from the back of the bus known as Vancouver, Nanaimo and other such nearby locales, has risen up to demand of council that it halt its savagery and let the deer live.
Now, I wouldn’t dare argue against someone who, in the pit of their heart and soul, is genuinely offended, insulted and saddened by humans killing animals to protect their own communities. The past few thousand years of human history is sickeningly littered with the acts of fear. The Crusades spring to mind; wolf slaughter is another example. There are thousands of other tales that led to extinctions of species. Many of the people opposed to the cull are rational, sane people, and some were involved in the process that led to this solution. They just found themselves on the wrong side of a democratic vote.
But what I can’t stand are the reactionaries. The knee jerking whiners who only come out to play when they feel it is time to shout their righteous indignation from on high. In short – troublemakers.
Invermere, like Kimberley and Cranbrook, conducted an extensive pondering into the urban deer problem.
Committees were struck, with all the usual public warning – such as ads in local newspapers. Unfortunately, the apathetic only read newspapers when they’ve been told they are in them.
The urban deer committees wrestled with all the solutions possible – most likely all the solutions Invermere is being presented with now that 18 months of committee work and council deliberations have been concluded and the bolt-gun and clover traps are in town.
I’ve tried not to write about the civil lawsuit that was dropped on Invermere taxpayers’ laps by 14 dangerous and reckless people. You’re suffering for this? Really? Well, I am suffering from your witless twittery. Who do I sue for that?
Think about it. If the B.C. Supreme Court hears their nonsense and gives them credence, where does it end?
Last night the City of Cranbrook’s council unanimously agreed to approve a couple of development permits allowing for the construction of townhomes. It made me sick; I can’t eat; I can’t focus on work; I have become irrationally terrified of hardhat wearing deer; and I have forgotten the letter H. Don’t ask me how I managed to remember to type it, but believe me – I’ve forgotten it. Guess I better sue the city for causing me such enormous harm.
What a crock of dementedly smelly crap. As Denis Leary would say, “life sucks, get a helmet. Pull up your pants!”
And now, it seems, some anti-cull folks are ratcheting up their efforts to stop the cull. Please see: https://www.e-know.ca/news/cull-contractor-being-harassed/.
Seriously? You are going to ‘terrorize’ the cull contractor? Don’t you know he’s armed with a bolt-gun?
It’s been apparent that care for human beings is low on the list of priorities with some of the anti-cull folks, as they don’t seem to hear the cries of worry from parents of small children who are terrified their offspring will be hurt or killed. They are doing what the does are doing – defending their young and territory.
How in the name of sweet Jeebus can you argue against that?
Will you anti-cull folks be willing to stand up and proudly declare you halted the thinning of an overcrowded urban herd of deer when a child has his/her skull crushed by a freaked out mama deer, because you FAILED to be involved 18 or 24 months earlier and used the processes put into place for ALL to take part in and be heard like a civil, informed free person? I’m betting you will leave town.
Had people shown such love for urban deer earlier, say back in 2005/06 when this issue really began to appear as a topic in front of Cranbrook’s, Kimberley’s and Invermere’s councils, we likely would not be here right now. The much more costly concept of relocating deer would have occurred and the beagles would be baying about how cruel that is.
The fact is we are here because urban deer are a problem that is far from going away.
I personally support the culls. I’ve lived in the East Kootenay for 20 years and have had plenty of encounters with deer. I don’t hate them. Not at all. I think it is cool they wander around our towns – just not in such thick clusters. And if they get aggressive, my first thought is to… calm them down with something heavy.
That said, I also support the City of Cranbrook which last night (March 5), through the work of its Urban Deer Committee, agreed to a pilot relocation program – to test the waters and theories around that method of removing deer.
Face it folks – they gotta go – one way or another. Neither way is ‘good’ for them.
But you know what would be WAY worse for the deer? A child being maimed or killed.
Think for a brief second of how many of the East Kootenay’s estimated 70,000 people have rifles. It would be a slaughter.
I’d be interested to see if the Invermere terrorists would have the balls to be ‘deer heroes’ then.
So damn you District of Invermere, damn you all to hell. How dare you try to solve a problem? How dare you consider the safety of children? How dare you take almost two years to get to this stage, you hyper-reactionary bastards?
Ah hell, why am I bothering to rant about this? The people I am shouting at are back inside their bubbles, waiting for the beagles to bay.
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
