Kelowna residents fed up with deer propose cull

A group of Kelowna residents are gathering signatures on a petition to have the City cull deer that they say are damaging their neighbourhoods.

The Upper Mission residents believe deer have become habituated to the residential buffet.

“They are being born here and never leave the community,” Ken Walker said.

Walker said he has done everything he can to dissuade deer from feeding on his landscaping, including fencing off plants, using commercially available deer repellent and planting vegetation the animals don’t like to eat.

None of them have worked.

Walker and his neighbours have collected more than 1,000 names on a petition toward asking the City of Kelowna to cull a percentage of the problem deer.

The City doesn’t believe the problem is that drastic.

“I don’t think we’re at that point where that’s even a factor,” Kelowna’s park services manager Blair Stewart said.

Walker and his group plan to continue their fight for a solution to save their properties.