The City of Longueuil will be able to allow controlled crossbow hunting in order to counter the overpopulation of deer in Michel-Chartrand Park, as initially decided by the Superior Court on August 31.
Court of Appeal judge Robert Mainville rejected the request of the Animal Rescue organization and citizen Florence Meney, with the support of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), who wanted to cancel the decision of the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks (MFFP) to grant the City of Longueuil authorization to kill deer.
The herd exceeds a hundred animals while experts estimate the capacity of the park at around twenty animals maximum.
The envisaged appeal essentially revolved around the interpretation of article 898.1 of the Civil Code of Quebec which emphasizes that “animals are not property”, that they “are beings endowed with sensitivity and they have biological imperatives.
In his judgment, the judge wrote that the applicants argued that section 898.1 “would require government authorities to only consider slaughter in cases of animal nuisance after having excluded all other solutions, such as sterilization or relocation.” .
But according to the judgment, the City of Longueuil offered several opportunities to the applicants to express their point of view “on the question of the measures to be taken in order to resolve the problem of overpopulation of deer within the Park” and that the decision to slaughtering animals “is part of the legitimate exercise of the powers that the law attributes to the City in matters of parks, the environment, nuisances, health and safety”.
The plaintiffs, according to Judge Mainville, “have not succeeded in demonstrating the unreasonable nature” of the municipal administration’s decision and this decision is “the result of a long process of consultation and reflection which integrates important considerations for the well-being and sensitivity of deer.
The judgment also emphasizes that the MFFP ensures that the permit to kill deer includes “all the conditions allowing the operation to be carried out respectful of animal sensitivity”.
The City of Longueuil welcomes the decision
In a press release sent to the media, the mayor of Longueuil, Catherine Fournier, welcomed the decision of Judge Robert Mainville.
“Now that the Court of Appeal has confirmed the absence of grounds for appeal of the decision of the Superior Court of Quebec rendered on August 31, and in accordance with our expectations, our teams will continue the work to complete the operation to reduce livestock and thus restore the ecological balance of Michel-Chartrand Park, as we quickly undertook in the weeks following our taking office at city hall, in the fall of 2021″, said Mayor Fournier.
The municipal councilor of the sector, Jonathan Tabarah, added that the decision “reassures the population” while “the state of Michel-Chartrand Park continues to deteriorate rapidly due to the overpopulation of deer, which worries citizens and residents. citizens, in addition to the road safety issues inherent to the surroundings of the Park.
The mayor’s office indicated that the timetable and the intervention plan for killing the park’s animals will be communicated to the population soon.
This saga began in 2020 when the City of Longueuil began to want to control the deer population, estimating at the time that it had to capture and euthanize around fifteen overpopulated animals.
The decision aroused strong opposition from some citizens and animal rights groups, dragging it out long enough for the white-tailed deer population to explode and exceed 100.