After announcing a month ago that deer slaughter will be suspended at Michel-Chartrand Park, Longueuil will finally go ahead this fall. The mayor, Catherine Fournier, invokes the urgency of the situation and wants to obtain a permit from the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks of Quebec (MFFP) for “controlled hunting […]without firearms”, with a crossbow.
“The details of the intervention plan, including details on the authorized hunting sessions, the frequency, the number of hunters authorized and distributed on the site, the method of hunting, the occasional closures of the park as well as the deployment of security will be communicated at the beginning of the fall,” said Jonathan Tabarah, municipal councilor for the Parc-Michel-Chartrand district and vice-president of the city’s executive committee, in a press release.
A “technical committee” has been set up and the city is planning an agreement with a hunting coordinator and “an experienced team of specialized hunters. This will be done with a crossbow, confirmed the office of the mayor to the To have to.
The city had however announced in June to suspend the euthanasia of 70 deer following an agreement reached at the Longueuil courthouse with lawyer Me Anne-France Goldwater, who opposes the slaughter of deer and who represents Sauvetage Animal Rescue. A court hearing was to be held.
But the municipality evokes a “particularly worrying context for the ecological balance of the park” to justify its change of course. A count made by the MFFP in February listed 108 deer, an increase of 50% compared to 2021, and 238% compared to 2017.
Catherine Fournier thus mandated the City last week to submit an application for an SEG permit (for scientific, educational or wildlife management purposes) to the MFFP.
The plan was initially to capture and euthanize the deer, but, “the latest count carried out by the Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks (MFFP) forces us to revise both the mode of operation and our objective of intervention to act as quickly as possible, by a method more adapted to these new data”, insisted the mayor.
“The park can, remember, support only 10 to 15 deer, at most. The work of the Table de concertation is very clear in this regard,” she added.
U-turn denounced
The two parties were preparing to “put the file in state” by December 9 for a hearing before the superior court, denounces Me Anne-France Goldwater, in a telephone interview with The duty.
“And there it falls on our heads, without notice and without giving my clients the chance to present their arguments,” she says. We can’t commit ourselves to court and ignore our word. We are not the United States here, we are a country with rights”.
She has “proceedings pending before the court”, which she will be “forced to amend” by adding new facts. “It is certain that, when I have more details, I will add all this in the procedure,” she said. “The fact that they’re changing the plan is an implicit admission that the original plan was far too cruel using a stab gun,” she adds.
“People walk with their children, with the grandparents, with their dog, in this vast park. And there we are going to send snipers with crossbows? It’s a recipe for tragedy, ”insists Me Goldwater.
She sees a risk of injury or death with this “cruel” method of hunting, which does not necessarily result in the animal being killed instantly. “If they don’t have security guards every 50 feet around the perimeter of the park, how are they going to make sure there’s no one there,” she says.
She adds that “various plans, at no cost to taxpayers” are being proposed to relocate the deer and sterilize them.