Most of us are familiar with conservationists’ concerns about the threat from Atlantic salmon escaping from commercial fish farms or voracious Asian snakeheads released by aquarium owners to colonize British Columbia lakes and rivers at the expense of Pacific salmon and trout.
Not to mention predatory imported bullfrogs infesting regional lakes or even the curse of Scotch broom tangles invading the rare and endangered Garry oak ecosystem with its fragile meadows of wildflowers, phenomena which prompt frog spearing and broom-pulling parties by volunteer eco-defenders.
Now we’ve got another invasive species to worry about — a cute, Bambi-like creature with a Godzilla-like penchant for devouring entire landscapes.
Parks Canada officials confirm that fallow deer, an imported species known for munching habitat down to the bare ground, have established themselves in the new Gulf Island National Park Reserve that was created specifically to protect our delicate, beautiful island landscapes.
Set up nine years ago, the park reserve sprawls across 15 islands and scores of rocky islets and drying reefs. Despite its large area, the Gulf Islands National Park is quite small.
It includes only 36 square kilometres of land and adjacent marine areas. Another 26 square kilometres of submarine ecosystems fall under the park’s administrative jurisdiction.
These areas represent some of the last remaining little-modified examples of the Strait of Georgia Lowlands, one of Canada’s most ecologically precarious natural regions.
The threatened landscape is precisely what makes the discovery of fallow deer living within the park so alarming to conservation authorities.
Fallow deer are a small European ungulate that’s identifiable by its reddish coat and by its “Bambi look” — permanent large white spots on the animals’ sides which are reminiscent of those seen on the flanks of native deer when they are newborn fawns.
Rob Walker says the fallow deer were noticed by a Saturna Island resident last summer. They appear to have swum across from Mayne Island, where a population thought to have escaped from a former commercial venison farming operation has established itself and become a growing problem for private landowners there, who hold an annual hunt to keep numbers down.
According to the B.C. government, there are 14 licensed fallow deer operations in the province, where the animals are raised to supply a growing market for organic venison, which is much lower in fat and cholesterol than other red meats.
Twenty years ago, most venison consumed in B.C. was either hunted or imported from New Zealand. Today, domestic fallow deer farms supply 80 per cent of the retail meat consumed by individuals and sold as specialty dishes in restaurants.
Velvet and shavings from deer antlers are exported to Asian markets where they are used for medicinal purposes and as an aphrodisiac. Fallow deer hair is in demand for the manufacture of specialty rugs and hides are used to make leather clothing.
The problem with fallow deer in the wild, says Rob Walker, the park’s conservation manager, is that unlike the Gulf Islands’ native blacktail deer, the newcomers are voraciously indiscriminate browsers and a herd will rapidly strip all the understory and ground cover before moving on.
Native island deer, which are selective browsers, can’t compete and their populations dwindle while fallow deer numbers explode to fill the ecological niche.
The stripping of the ground cover and underbrush also has a profound detrimental effect on insect life and the songbirds, bats, frogs and other creatures that insect populations sustain.
Walker said one area he investigated after fallow deer had stripped it was “as bare as a billiard table” and the concurrent depletion of birdlife caused him great concern.
Introduced to Sidney Island for sport hunting in 1900, the fallow deer numbers exploded, denuding areas of the island and creating an ecological nightmare which continues, despite a 30-year effort at population control by land owners there.
On Saturna, Walker said, the deer are not just a threat to sensitive ecological areas within the park but also to private gardens and the island’s vineyards.
But controlling the deer is complicated. The park is not contiguous, but is a patchwork of holdings scattered among many private properties large and small and not all private owners are in agreement with eradicating or even culling problem fallow deer populations.
On Saturna, for example, there’s a long established feral goat population. But Parks Canada acknowledges that it has been there so long it’s acquired a cultural significance that offsets some of the negative effects that offend biological purists.
And the feral goats make their own ecological contribution – their indiscriminate browsing keeps invading Scotch broom in check.
As I say, it’s complicated.
So far, Walker says, plans for dealing with the new problem include setting up remote cameras in the park to monitor deer activities, feeding patterns and numbers and for park staff to meet with the community to discuss the potential impacts and control options — including eradication.