Because of the unusually large population of whitetail deer in and around the Magrath area, Fish and Wildlife has decided to open a limited entry quota hunt in order to alleviate a lot of problems caused by too many deer in one area.
“We feel and anticipate there will be pretty high support for this,” said Kim Morton, senior wildlife biologist for Lethbridge Fish and Wildlife. “Their food source in this area is pretty high – either people’s gardens or the surrounding Magrath hay fields. But Magrath is a bit of a unique situation and you normally wouldn’t see such high populations of white tail in this kind of natural situation, but they’re protected here because there are no natural predators and there’s lots of shelter.”
Morton says that right now there is a high deer population right across the province because of the tremendous amount of snow we received, which tends to cause deer to group up, and Magrath just happens to be a particularly bad spot.
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Imagine if the problem was with rats vs cute little deer. It seems to be a Public Relations issue with killing Bambi vs reducing pests that have few natural predators locally and free lunch in my backyard.