Duane Hicks
Disappointed with the town not allowing them to keep up the fence they had erected at their Sixth Street East home to protect their property from deer, local residents Marie and Lynwood Anderson are moving to New Brunswick to operate a tree farm they have bought.
At a court appearance here April 9, the couple pleaded guilty to a charge of having a fence not in accordance with town’s fencing bylaw, and were given 60 days to remove it.
Marie Anderson said in an interview Friday that if they had not pleaded guilty, the matter would have gone to trial in a criminal court.
“The justice had explained to us that if we were in civil court, we would have won,” she explained. “They could have used extenuating circumstances of the deer and the disease and everything else.
“We didn’t know it was criminal court because we didn’t have a lawyer, and we didn’t have a lawyer because the town has used all of the lawyers in town, so they were all in conflict,” added Anderson.
“I don’t want anyone to think we were representing ourselves because it was a choice,” she stressed. “We were kind of forced into it because who can afford to bring a lawyer in from Thunder Bay or wherever.
“We decided to just end this because we could go to civil court, but why would we waste another two years?” Anderson reasoned. “It probably would take two years to resolve and we would win, but nobody wins in that case.
“We just decided we’re going to leave,” she added. “It still hurts me because all we wanted to do is protect our property.”
Anderson said they will comply with the court order to take down their fence in a short while—after she transplants her flowers to the interior courtyards at Rainycrest where deer can’t get at them.
Anderson said she and her husband will be moving to their Christmas tree farm in New Brunswick later this year after they sell their house and their 12-acre farm on Highway 611 South, where they grew flowers and vegetables which they sold at the local farmers’ market.
Anderson said she will miss the community in some ways. For example, she was a member of the Fort Frances Horticultural Society and gave lectures all over the district.
Besides working on the courtyards at Rainycrest, she also was involved with the local “Communities in Bloom” project and did the landscaping plan for the current Rainy River District School Board offices on Second Street East—even receiving an award for it.
“It’s still there and it’s still beautiful. At least people can still enjoy that, too,” said Anderson.
The couple also delivered “Meals on Wheels” here.
Anderson said she would like to thank all of the people who have phoned her and been supportive.
“We’re not criminals. If we weren’t law-abiding citizens, we wouldn’t have phoned and asked to put [the fence] up, for permission do it,” she reasoned, adding she felt the town seems to be inconsistent with its fencing bylaw from property to property.
“It’s kind of sad in a way. We were content to be here, and I think the court trial pushed me over the edge,” admitted Anderson.
“But we are looking forward to going to New Brunswick,” she added. “It’s a new life, it’s a new adventure.
“I don’t know if we’re old fools to be doing this at our age, but we’re looking forward to it.”
Anderson said there continues to be an overabundance of deer coming into the community. And by not taking measures other than banning the feeding of wildlife in town limits, and on town property lying outside the municipality, the town has opened itself up to several problems.
For example, Anderson felt property values are dropping because no one is planting anything if what they plant only will be eaten up by the deer.
This also has an economic impact because if people aren’t planting flowers, they’re not buying them from local businesses.
Likewise, in order to replace the flowers deer are eating at the perpetual care lots at the local cemeteries, the town is growing 14,000 more flowers than it actually would need if the deer weren’t eating them.
Anderson also pointed out the town is concerned with deer at the airport—and it’s ironic that its preferred first line of defence is a deer fence.
She said other municipalities are taking measures against deer, and she has brought this information forward to the town.
For instance, the City of Dryden allows fencing anywhere on property up to a height of 8’4” as long as there is no visibility issue for cars. The City of Pinawa, Man., meanwhile, allows its citizens to erect fences to protect their property from deer, and help mitigate the need to clean up deer droppings.
But she felt the town hasn’t listened.
“People need to know the town has a responsibility to protect the citizens from this deer problem. It’s called due diligence,” Anderson argued.
“They are responsible if they are not enforcing their bylaws properly, too.
“If they’re not enforcing on people with in-ground pools and a child drowns, that leaves the town open to civil lawsuits, gross negligence lawsuits, not just as a group, but the mayor and councillors can be individually sued,” she noted.
Looking at the long-term, big picture, Anderson said a cull might be the only solution to the high deer numbers.
She doesn’t see the deer numbers going down anytime soon. And while deer fences do protect individual properties, it also forces the animals onto other people’s property without fences.
According to sources, like the Greenburgh Deer Committee Report conducted in New York in recent years, culling deer herds by 75-90 percent—and maintaining that level—is the only way to get high deer populations under control.
“By ignoring it, it just gets worse and worse. The herd gets bigger and bigger,” she warned.
“[The deer] are under pressure already. They’re eating stuff they normally would not eat,” Anderson said. “They’re eating tomatoes, they’re coming up on people’s decks and eating stuff off there.
“They’re becoming a danger, too, because of the proximity. If you get close to a doe with a fawn, they can be very dangerous.”
In addition to being carriers of deer ticks and Lyme disease, deer also are endangering the public by attracting wolves into town, Anderson stressed.
“The wolves, they’re only coming for a meal, It’s not their fault. They wouldn’t be here if the deer weren’t here,” she reasoned.
“We didn’t have wolves in town before. We didn’t have this deer problem six years ago.”
While the Ministry of Natural Resources has stated the high deer numbers will be stabilized by a couple of consecutive severe winters, Anderson said with global warming and recent weather trends, she doesn’t feel harsh winters are in the cards anytime soon.
“You can sit and wait for nature to take its course, but as the deer get under more pressure, and there’s less food for them because they’re territorial and they stay in the same area, they’re going to start dying from disease and from starvation, and that’s even a worse way to die [than being culled],” she argued.
When asked about deer being in New Brunswick, Anderson noted deer don’t eat balsam fir trees, which is what they’ll be growing.
And from what she’s heard, it also seems the province of New Brunswick is willing to help out those with deer problems, added Anderson.
She had spoken with a friend there who owns an orchard. He had a deer problem, and then the province stepped in and put up a deer fence around his orchard so he didn’t have to shoot them.
“There are a lot of deer and moose down there,” she noted. “If our crop was something the deer went after, we would be able to just take them out.
“But here . . . you need permission [from the MNR] to do it,” she remarked.
Mayor Roy Avis declined to comment when contacted Monday.
