Ottawa spends $5.7 million on deer eradication in Haida Gwaii featuring New Zealand sharpshooters

[scruffy]

I hired a guide in 1999 on my birthday in early July. A three day hunt at $250 a day in Canadian funds. I bought two tags as they were quite expensive for a non B.C. dude.

The guide, Walter, had guiding rights to one half of the area back then.

We did not have any luck hunting in the hills in the heat so eventually we packed all of our gear in a little boat and with about three inches of clearance we motored on out to an island where he had a little cabin made of plywood about the size of a normal bathroom.

I was up to hunt at first light but old Walter finally got up and got us going around 11:00 a.m. No deer. He thought that we should have been hunting earlier that day ...

The next two evenings we hunted a bay area and when the deer came out to feed I had no problem filling my tags.

They were absolutely delicious eating.

Spectacular country with monstrous sized trees...

After the hunt a retired school teacher by the name of Alex took us salmon fishing for a day for $450. On the west coast.

Another great day.

Both of these fine men are now home from the hills ... But my memories of those days are very special ...

[britman101]

Part of the problem is that getting to these areas is not easy. A ferry ride from Rupert is one way of getting there, or travel by small aircraft out of Vancouver. If you fly in, you are going to have to pay a small ransom to transport all your cargo and deer out. And if you ferry in, you have to be setup so as to keep your meat in great shape as it is a long trip back to the mainland.
So there may be lots of deer on the island but getting there and back with the present transportation set up by the provincial government is the problem.

[Dean2]

The big problem here is spending millions getting rid of deer that aren't hurting a frggin thing, who even ever goes to these areas to see they are over grazing, when there are truly large problems that need to be dealt with.

Governments need to get a grip on reality and stick to the basics. Defense, Education, roads, Border protection and Heath care. We cannot afford the ever expanding Government budgets as they branch out and control everything they can lay their hands on.

[Mr. Dynamite]

Why didn't they just call up the professional eradication specialists that they invited into Jasper last fall?

[Tactical Lever]

$2 000 000 000 to kill a lousy 598 deer??! (are those numbers close for 2017?) Pretty sure we have enough Canadian hunters, and animal control guys to do here....

If that's the kill rate they'll never put a dent in the population. If I was a Haida over there I'd be farkin' ticked! Not too long ago, the bag was 10, and I'm pretty sure there were some that were taking 20.... And everyone knew you'd never come close to killing them off. In 20 km you could count 100 deer along the road at night.

Meanwhile there are a bunch of guys not working steady, who could use some bounty money, and/or extra meat.

Could invite guys in from out of province to bag a few for free. Absolutely ludicrous how much this is costing. They could use some of that money to hire a few full time F+W/animal control guys.

[Bigwoodsman]

Are there no wolves or cougars on these islands to control the deer populations?

BW

[Tactical Lever]

Originally Posted by Bigwoodsman

Are there no wolves or cougars on these islands to control the deer populations?

BW

No. Just black bear, eagles, and raven.