Letter: While some insist urban deer are a nuisance, others enjoy the beauty of nature around us

By Letter to the Editor on April 8, 2026.

Dear editor,

We are blessed to have deer in our communities, knowing they offer a positive aesthetic experience and a connection to nature.

One has only to know about the harmful effects social media and the internet have on our vulnerable young people to realize how they would benefit from seeing something like the ‘gentleness’ of deer coexisting here that is the opposite extreme from the ‘hardness’ that accompanies cars and cell phones, tablets and computers.

I was not impressed by a letter to the editor in our local newspaper expressing the opposite opinion by requesting removal of all deer through culls (apparently they are fine with a bow and arrow, not guns) and I wonder if they would wish to pull the twine to kill the Prince of the Forest?

They would like the females captured and given fertility treatment (unfortunately this was the mindset directed toward people with disabilities decades ago).

They made the audacious comment that deer have no respect for the car goers who often have to pause on their journey to let them pass.

Thank-you, Bambi, and all your relatives for being the one effective means to slow down traffic in our city where driving behaviour is often deplorable and where cars with dents are seen everywhere.

So be frustrated and blow your car horn, too, if that appeases you, and help to lead us all to a more sterile environment if that is your wish; after all, children can always read about them, right?

I have seen more than 200 species of birds in our province and at one time could identify more than 60 species by their call; unfortunately our human obsession with cars has diminished that opportunity in the same way urban lights mask the evening stars.

Those who cannot appreciate nature as a form of wealth over monetary value, are also devoid of inspiration and life itself.

I am reminded of such an attitude while living in B.C. when someone suggested we should cull 75 per cent of the wolf population, which garnered instant attention until someone asked the question:

“What do 75 per cent of the wolves eat?”

Rightly-considered in the true nature of things, “every green tree is far more glorious than silver and gold,” (Martin Luther King) and “in every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” (John Muir).

James Back

Medicine Hat

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