The city of Longueuil will meet with an animal rescue group to discuss alternatives to culling dozens of deer living in Michel Chartrand Park.
The news comes after the city of Longueuil announced in November it had revived a controversial plan to kill most of the deer living in the urban park.
Longueuil Mayor Catherine Fournier says she was following the recommendations of a committee that stressed the need to drastically reduce the number of white-tailed deer in the area.
The park is home to over 70 deer— more than five times the number of animals it can comfortably support and over two times more than there were in 2020 when a cull plan was originally announced.
“They kind of pretend like they went through a formal process before taking the decision, but I don’t believe it,” says lawyer Anne-France Goldwater, who is working alongside the animal rescue group.
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“We’re all a bunch of volunteers and we have all kinds of shelters willing to take in these deer and we assume all the costs of the relocation.”
The committee said it considered other options, including relocating the animals or reducing their numbers with sterilization or birth control, but it concluded the only viable short-term option was to capture and euthanize a large portion of the deer.
“I’m sure with a polite dialog, especially with a lawyer involved who is ready to take the matter to court, I think that we can get to a common sense and courteous solution,” adds Goldwater.
Sauvetage Animal Rescue will meet with the mayor on Tuesday. Goldwater says she hopes to be part of the discussion.
The city did not respond to Global News’s request for comment.
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