THEY WOULDN'T DARE!

Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for the day, I heard the following story on CBC. It made me mad – and I decided to put it on the old biddy blog to see what other people thought.

The gist of the story is about a baby deer found near the dead body of its mother outside the town of Ucluelet in B.C. five years ago. Janet Schwartz, of Ucluelet, adopted the baby deer and raised it as a pet. Bimbo and Janet have become firm friends over the past five years.

Suddenly, out of the blue, along comes the Ministry of the Environment; not one month, or one year after this adoption occurred, but FIVE years later, and decrees that the deer must be returned to the wild! Where, oh where is common sense?

I have to agree with the Ministry that wild animals should not be kept as pets, but I have to ask what it has done in the past with real wild animals, lions, tigers and snakes, particularly pythons, smuggled into the province and kept in cages as pets; animals who pose a huge danger to people if they escape?

In this case, why did the government not intervene five years ago? I suspect they didn’t know anything about the situation and they only know now probably through the tales of a pious know-it-all neighbour or individual, or possibly one of these rabid environmentalists who cannot make any kind of exception to any rule.

I am outraged on a number of fronts, not the least of which is severing the bond between animal and human that has been forged over the last five years. I doubt that Bimbo could ever be rehabilitated and returning her to the wild is returning her to an environment fraught with dangers for her. She is absolutely no threat to the general public I agree with Janet that the separation of deer and human is not an option. The ‘damage’ such as it is, has been done, and the ministry should now butt out and leave the matter well alone.

You can find more detail about this report by going to www.cbc.ca/bc Select under headlines on left hand side, ‘bc woman fights to keep deer at home’.