The City of Longueuil now has its permit in hand to carry out the operation to reduce the deer herd at Michel-Chartrand Park. Around a hundred of these animals will therefore be slaughtered as planned in the coming months.
This was indicated by the municipal administration in a press release early Friday afternoon, confirming that it had received an SEG permit for scientific, educational or wildlife management purposes from the Ministry of Agriculture. ‘Environment.
Such a step “confirms the operation to control the overpopulation of white-tailed deer that Longueuil intends to carry out this fall in order to preserve the ecological balance of Michel-Chartrand Park, currently threatened,” it is explained. The Court of Appeal authorized this desire of the City last October.
A priori, the said permit will be effective until February 15, 2025. It is “precision shooting with a compressed air weapon” which will be used as an intervention method.
This was one of the last steps required to move forward, the City having already awarded the contract in recent months to a specialized security firm and another to a wildlife management professional company, in addition to have modified its regulations governing the use of weapons in a public environment.
We do not know the exact date of the start of the operation, but one thing is certain: “access to the park will be completely secure and temporarily closed to the population” during the entire process, affirms the Longuilloise management. “A display specific to the operation – inside and around the park – will be deployed. The precise dates and modalities will not be communicated in advance in order to maximize security and the smooth running of operations,” she persisted.
Sharp increase in cash
The City also recalled on Friday that the number of deer counted in Michel-Chartrand Park, over an area of less than 2 km2“has more than tripled in recent years”. While there were 32 deer in 2017, there were already 72 in 2021, then 108 in 2022, 117 in 2023 and 114 in 2024.
In addition, “an increase in the number of dead deer in the area near Michel-Chartrand Park was noted”, going from 28 in 2021 to 41 in 2022 and 52 in 2023. In short, if the operation is certainly “delicate “, it is “essential to preserve this natural jewel that is Michel-Chartrand Park”, maintains the administration.
Last month, The Press revealed data obtained under an access to information request showing that since 2016, more than 450 road accidents – including around twenty resulting in injuries – have involved deer in Longueuil, including at Parc Michel- Chartrand.
The Longueuil City Police Department (SPAL) has received an increasing number of calls concerning deer in recent years. In 2021, the number of reports amounted to 140, a figure which jumped in 2022 to 178, then to 241 in 2023. In the majority of the 751 calls received between July 2020 and July 2024, the SPAL had to deploy a patrol vehicle. In total, 605 interventions were carried out.
With Bruno Marcotte, The Press