Oak Bay wants to vaccinate deer in your yard this fall
Whether it works comes down to how many gates open in September.
Eleven deer were trapped and killed with a bolt gun in Oak Bay's 2015 cull. The district's answer this fall is a consent form: it is asking property owners to let veterinarians from HERD Wildlife Management onto their yards to give female deer a contraceptive vaccine.
The work is planned for early September through the end of October, with teams operating between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.
The pitch rests on the last go-round. An earlier trial injected 120 female deer between 2019 and 2021. Within four years, the adult-deer population dropped by nearly half. Fawn numbers fell close to 60 per cent after the first year.
For residents, the practical question is a small one: whether to open the gate. Oak Bay's consent form is available through the District's deer program page.