Sifton Bog is on the opposite side of London from Fanshawe College. It's an environmentally sensitive area within city limits. Housing developments run right up to the edge of the Bog, which contains rare species of plants... and anywhere from 35 to 50-plus deer.

The presence of that many deer in the Bog has been an issue debated in London for nearly a decade now. Some people believe the deer are suffering because the Bog can't sustain them. Others believe the deer are causing the Bog harm. Still other people think the deer should be left alone, or actively fed. Councillor Stephen Orser once proposed creating a Deer Park type attraction.

The city once asked the Upper Thames Valley Authority to study what should be done about the deer. The Authority suggested a cull. That means killing the deer. This didn't convince the city and the debate dragged on.

At City Hall in the winter, a faction of councillors asked the Upper Thames Authority to research “non-lethal” means of controlling the deer, like a sterilization program. Other suggestions were tranquilizing the deer and moving them somewhere else.

Clearly, the cheapest and simplest course of action is to allow a controlled hunt of the Bog. The entire province of Ontario has a similar program. It's called the annual deer hunt.

Modern natural resource management encourages hunting as a way to manage wild animals like deer and create revenue. Fees for hunting and fishing licenses are now the major contributor to the Ministries of Natural Resources, which uses the money to police hunters and study the natural landscape. The founder of the Sierra Club, John Muir, understood that as people gradually destroyed the natural heritage of North America, intelligent biological management would be needed. Muir wasn't a big fan of hunting, but he understood its role. Native Canadians understand the role of the hunter in the environment. Too bad animal rights activists don't.

There are no natural predators for deer in Southern Ontario. There may be a few scattered wolves in places, and coyotes may be able to take down small fawns or old, injured, and sick deer. But the deer population in the London region is growing. The Ministry of Natural Resources has, for the last several years, issued extra deer licenses to hunters in local Wildlife Management Units, expressly in order to control the population.

The deer in Sifton Bog should not have any special rights that the rest of the province's deer don't. And urban hunting is a trend that has taken hold in areas of the United States. Often, hunters are brought in to hunt the deer, and the meat is donated to local food banks.

To my mind, it's a small, localized version of the annual hand-wringing debate over the seal hunt on the East Coast. A stable population of animals, a natural renewable resource that can be intelligently managed. But when Sir Paul McCartney flies in and demands to have his tender sensibilities saved from the sight of a natural process, which somehow trumps over a century of study and careful consideration. Maybe Sir Paul could instead donate a couple million dollars to pay for otherwise unemployed East Coast workers to pet and groom the seals.

It's the Ministry and hunters who brought wild turkeys back to Ontario in the late 1980s. And now there are probably over a hundred thousand of the big birds wandering around the province. They become prey to fox and coyotes and wolves and big cats. The re-introduction of wild turkeys has also been an economic boon to the province, since regulated hunting creates a lot of money in license fees and a mandatory training course for hunters. I know hunting groups that are very active in saving wetlands, to preserve habitat for waterfowl. I haven't met too many Toronto environmentalists building nesting boxes for mallard and wood ducks, but they are very eager, like Liz White from the Animal Alliance, to video-tape the hunting of deer in Sifton Bog. White says deer with arrows sticking out their necks will inevitably happen and she wants to be on hand to record the massacre for posterity.

Maybe she should set her cameras up along area highways, as well. Deer are hit and injured on a daily basis across the province by motor vehicles. But that sounds like a bigger issue than what she clearly sees as the barbarous practice that has been around as long as humans have walked the land.

Venison tenderloins taste pretty good, by the way.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.