By Steve Hubrecht
[email protected]

Invermere’s urban deer were, for many years, one of the biggest local issues in the Columbia Valley. The district’s efforts to deal with them in various ways led to several lawsuits, and generated headlines across the province and even in national media.

Each twist and turn in the ongoing urban deer saga set controversy ablaze (and resulted in floods of passionate and angry letters to the editor from local residents in the Pioneer). 

Eventually, following a community-wide referendum in late 2013, Invermere instituted a deer cull. The cull was made operational (i.e. it was overseen by district staff, without each aspect of it being directed by Invermere council decisions), and was driven by location and complaints. If the district received consistent complaints of aggressive deer in a specific neighbourhood for an extended period of time, then that specific deer would be targeted for culling. 

At the time, council outlined that this approach was being used in the hopes of defusing controversy, as it was limited in scope only to particularly aggressive deer.

Over the first few years, only several deer (usually five to 10) were culled each year. Eventually, as complaints trailed off, the number of deer culled decreased, with the result that currently no deer have been culled at all for the past four or five years. Correspondingly the issue faded from the pages of the Pioneer, aside from the occasional letter to the editor.

But the issue leapt to the forefront yet again recently, when a local resident at last week’s Invermere council meeting cited her concern about aggressive deer along 15th Avenue between David Thompson Secondary School (DTSS) and Eileen Madson Primary School (EMP).

Leslie Rowe-Israelson, who lives on 15th Avenue between the two schools, outlined that there have recently been 15 to 25 deer in the area and that they’ve behaved in threatening ways. 

She noted there are plenty of kids walking through the neighbourhood, on their way to or from EMP, DTSS, and nearby J. A. Laird Elementary School.

“Is there anything that can be done in that area? Our dog has been stomped [by the deer] twice. They are really aggressive. We’ve been charged,” said Rowe-Israelson.

“That’s a loaded question,” replied Invermere Mayor Al Miller, referencing the intense controversy surrounding the deer cull.

Invermere Chief Administrative Officer Kindry Luyendyk told Rowe-Israelson she could report the incident to the Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) hotline and also to the district of Invermere, which would take note of which neighbourhood the incident happened in.

Rowe-Israelson said she had called the RAPP line several times and had not heard an answer back.

“I watch the kids going to school. It’s a primary school, they are very small kids. It (the aggressive deer) is an issue…there’s going to be a little kid stomped (by a deer) soon,” she said.

Invermere Councillor Gerry Taft suggested Rowe-Israelson “document things (with the deer) as much as possible. Not just once, but every single time. The more repetition the better. It’s hard sometimes, to get a handle on these things, and the more stats we have to back up what we hear anecdotally, the better.”