When I was an innocent little shaver, I believed Santa Claus came to our house every Christmas Eve in a sleigh drawn by reindeer. I had pictures of them in my colouring book. I didn't know there were deer of any other kind. It's no wonder I was ignorant. My childhood memories are filled with howling winds, stinging, blinding dust, heat-cracked soil and the machine-gun clatter of flying grasshoppers. The Saskatchewan short-grass prairie then was no playground for deer and antelope. I still think it incredible that a remnant of the antelope herds could have survived on the parched plains where they were hunted by desperate farmers who became poachers out of necessity.
Little boys learn. They begin to read and they have bigger books with more pictures. In time, I could identify all the members of the family Cervidae , but I never saw one in the flesh until 1945, the year the big war ended and six years after rains had come again to the plains. Every day now during a brutal winter, when I look through my window to the street, I see more mule deer than human beings. Cedars are their gastronomic preference. Every cedar they have been able to reach in the town has been stripped of last year's growth. They are starving.
We have laws in Saskatchewan that protect them from death or injury by human predators. This winter they are not protected from starvation. I think the logic is simple. If the games branch neither culls nor relocates urban deer herds, it should have the sole responsibility of feeding them. Bales are cheaper than ornamental trees and bushes.
The urban dwelling herds I see are mule deer. White-tails are more timid, as are antelope. Nobody could accuse a hulking bull moose of being timid. He doesn't have to be. I encountered the first of these creatures a decade ago when I was mapping a pioneer cemetery. A cow moose and her calf decided the tall grass growing between the gravestones was particularly tasty. I decided to leave. Since then, more and more deer, elk and moose have come down from the forest fringe. Predators have followed them. Town-dwelling humans don't think coyotes and cougars make congenial neighbours.
Managing wildlife is part of managing the environment, an activity for which Canada now earns few international plaudits. Most Canadians are concerned by the loss of habitat and other detrimental factors here and elsewhere that threaten many other life forms with extinction. Some scientists, using DNA extracted from the preserved remains of passenger pigeons hope to bring back the gigantic flocks of these birds which gun-toting Canadians exterminated long ago. They refer to their work as filling environmental holes. The extinction of the woolly mammoth left a huge hole. Thus far, nobody is planning an attempt to fill it.
Whatever other life forms remain in the natural world (and whatever might be resurrected) must face the danger of competition by invasive species which include animals, fish and insects. The most visible of the invaders are wild hogs. Introduced into the prairies by blundering experts who were trying to provide farmers with another cash crop, the prolific hogs have become the most dangerous menace among all the intrusive life forms. Except one. European immigrants, from the first one to the present generation of their descendants, have done more damage than all the wild boars and other invasive species put together. We can shoot wild boars on sight; we may be able to kill them all.
Taking such drastic measures is not possible with human beings. Environmentalists have no choice other than to attempt to teach more people to have respect for the planet that is our home. Some day, their message might even receive a courteous reception in Ottawa.
I am not painted so green that I have any affection for the urban deer herd. The damage to the urban forest has been immense. If possible, I would consign every animal to become venison in the freezers of the food banks. If the patrons of such establishments were not enthusiastic about a diet of wild game, I would enliven the menu with home-made chokecherry wine. Provided the deer haven't eaten all the chokecherry bushes.
