Police on Vancouver Island are warning residents to protect their pets during deer mating season after a buck fatally injured a dog in someone’s yard this week.
Oak Bay police say the aggressive buck speared a 15-year-old husky-shepherd mix in the chest with its antlers around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
They say the dog, which had lost its hearing, had been walking along the edge of the property and approached the buck as it was eating vegetation. The deer then lowered its head and tossed the dog, according to police.
The husky was taken to a veterinary clinic with a three-to-four inch puncture in its chest and euthanized.
Sgt. Kevin Diachina said they believe the dog may have accidentally spooked the large buck. He said Oak Bay has some large deer and that the males can be “unpredictable” and “aggressive” in rutting season.
Diachina said the dog’s owner reached out to police hoping to spread awareness, and that it’s important for owners keep pets at a distance at this time of year.
Rutting season is the annual mating period for deer, elk and moose in B.C., and usually lasts from late October until December. During this time, deer can become more agitated and defensive.
Conservation officers and animal control officials have been informed about the attack on the dog, police said.
Some deer on birth control
Oak Bay Mayor Kevin Murdoch said he was “horrified” to learn of the death of the dog, and said that deer in the Greater Victoria area are typically shy and run away.
“I think they’ve been quite emboldened by their large numbers and familiarity with just being around people and dogs,” he told Jason D’Souza, host of CBC’s All Points West.
Murdoch said the overpopulation of deer in the area has become an issue for local residents. For that reason, Oak Bay is in the midst a pilot project, which sees some deer being given birth control and immunocontraceptives to curb their numbers.
“However, it’s still a very restricted trial under very strict conditions by the province,” the mayor said.
“And so we’ve been asking them now, for a couple of years to let us, based on the information [and] the statistics … to let us actually apply immunocontraceptive more broadly both in Oak Bay and, ideally, across the region or across the province.”
All Points West6:46Deer kills dog in Oak Bay
Oak Bay mayor, Kevin Murdoch, responds to an incident in which a deer killed a family pet in its yard, and talks about ongoing efforts to control the CRD’s urban deer population.
Murdoch said he understands why the province may not want to make that call, though, based on the controversy that could be generated as a result.
“But I do think there’s an obligation here to recognize the risk of just having an uncontrolled population of deer,” he said.
“I think we’d like to get it back to the point where we’re a little thrilled to see the occasional deer, as opposed to sort of having to walk through herds of them on a day-to-day basis.”