APRIL 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC What’s the problem


with a few deer? Deer plague gnaws at orchardists' margins


by TOM WALKER KELOWNA – For the past


several years, the BC Fruit Growers Association (BCFGA) has identified a resolution calling for a deer cull as one of their priorities at their annual meeting. “I have come to the conclusion that a deer cull throughout the Okanagan is required,” said BCFGA president Fred Steele at the AGM this past January. “The risks to human safety, the overcrowding of these animals in an urban setting and the damage they do to crops is significant.” Country Life in BC spoke with cherry grower Niel Dendy, whose family has been growing fruit in east Kelowna since the turn of the last century, to better understand the impact of the burgeoning deer population in the Okanagan. Okanagan growers call


them “ghetto deer.” Dendy says they are just as likely to come up from town as they are to come down from the hills. “A lot of these deer are living in urban Kelowna. They are trampling pets and terrorizing little old ladies to get at their petunias,” he quips. “The Mission Creek Greenway creates a real highway for them and with our hot dry summers, the lush irrigated orchards are more attractive than the brown Okanagan hillsides.” Dendy explains how the deer munch on newly opened cherry blossoms, eating the potential for fruit in the current year, but also bud growth for next year as well. “The branch dies back, although it doesn’t hurt the tree,” he says. “But I figure we lose 30 to 40 tons of fruit a year.”


The most damage is in a newly planted block of young


trees. When the deer chew the tender young whips, they are eating a $15 investment in the grower’s future. “The deer saliva has an


enzyme that causes the sapling to die back farther than just the eight or 12 inches that they might take,” Dendy explains. “The young tree may


survive the first bite but any more and it is finished” says Dendy. The grower loses the investment in the tree, but also a full year of growing potential. That damaged sapling can’t be replaced until the following spring. “They are killing about one


in every three of our young trees,” he says. Dendy says he will plant


two acres of new trees this spring as part of the farm’s replant program that replaces older varietals with newer stock. “I haven’t planted for a couple of years.” he says. “I’d like to do more but it just isn’t worth the risk right now.” That block of trees will


have a fence around it and the young trees will be protected. Dendy says the cost of the fencing is not as much of a problem as the amount of productive land that can be lost when a fence is put up. “If you take a typical small block of five acres here in the Okanagan, the way our farms are set up, it might have a road on two sides,” Dendy says. “MOT (BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure) requires a fence to be set back from the road, so right away we lose some land.” “Then, WCB requires a 25


foot corridor between the fence and the rows of trees so machinery can maneuver,” he adds. (Unfenced orchards can be planted right out to the edge and machinery turns around on the road.) “With the fence, you can’t


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Okanagan orchardist Niel Dendy stands next to one of several bare spots in his orchard where deer have made a meal of his recently planted cherry trees. TOM WALKER PHOTO


access the road to load fruit bins and the farmer will need to clear a loading area in the orchard.” That five acre orchard is


now down to about four acres of trees.


“Land costs more than $100,000 an acre here in east Kelowna; it’ not that profitable an industry for that kind of a loss,” Dendy says. The orchards will soon look like a compound. And fences


just move the problem. “The deer will congregate


on unfenced land,” Dendy says. “Or they will corral on the road and cause an accident.” “We need an organized cull


program,” Dendy insists. “The deer won’t be frightened. These are not wild deer; they are domesticated.”


“I can walk up to some of them and they stare me down,” Dendy adds. “You can’t


just throw pebbles at them. I’m reluctant to send my staff to chase them away.” He suspects some farmers


are shooting deer illegally. “They don’t expect the politicians to find a solution.” “It’s not right that a farmer can control insects pests in his orchard, but not deer,” says Dendy. “The ALR compels me to farm, but I can’t protect my crop.”


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