The Truro Town Council is hoping to draw up a management strategy to deal with the growing downtown deer population.
Truro residents are on both sides of the fence, when it comes to deer.
Urban deer have been an on-going problem in Truro for several years. The town fined a woman for feeding deer back in 2015, but the practice seems to persist.
Allan Randall and his wife Joan are fed up because their gardens have been chewed up by animals.
“We used to have a lot of people visit our gardens, now we don't see anyone,” says Randall. “Except the only ones that we see now, are the deer.”
Truro resident, Greg MacArthur, says he likes seeing deer in his yard every day.
“I think it's one of these things that should be looked at as a tourist attraction,” says MacArthur. “Where I live, my back yard is Victoria Park, and I think that seeing the deer is part of nature.”
There is an online survey being carried out by the town of Truro, asking ‘Do you feel the deer population in Truro is a problem?’ So far, there is a 50-50 split reflected in the votes.
The council is also asking residents how they want to address the urban deer population. At a public meeting Tuesday night, there was little support for a cull, but plenty of interest for ideas like using dart-borne contraceptives.
Jason Fox, the town’s director of planning, says many options to deal with the deer problem were discussed at the meeting.
“Things like using repellants and feeding bans, trying like to entice the deer out of town by providing feeding stations outside of the urban areas,” says Fox. “Those were by far and away the more preferred options.”
The on-line survey will be available until the weekend.
The town is hoping to have a deer management strategy in place sometime later in the fall.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Dan MacIntosh.
