Urban deer make for interesting neighbours in northwestern Ontario cities and towns

There was a time when seeing a whitetail deer in Thunder Bay, Ont., was unusual, even newsworthy. These days, however, that is not the case.

Deer are often seen in the city, sometimes in large numbers. Recently, a video made the rounds on social media of a dozen or so deer walking on Fort William Road as cars and trucks passed by.

Online pictures of deer filing through city neighbourhoods or grazing under bird feeders, are also common.

Yet, Thunder Bay's urban deer herd is not an anomaly.

Several other northwestern Ontario communities have urban herds, including Dryden, Fort Frances and Kenora.

"The first urban deer showed up in Kenora maybe 15 or 20 years ago," explained Bruce Ranta, a biologist and outdoor writer. "It was rare to have deer in the city before then and I have been here since 1982. There were no urban deer then."

Ranta said it's possible that intense deer hunting on the outskirts of Kenora kept deer from moving into the city sooner. Or the movement of deer into Kenora could have been caused by a series of severe winters.

One thing he is sure of is the deer are not leaving any time soon.

"Deer are very adaptable animals," said Ranta. "In the 1800s, the pioneering attitude was deer were food and food was to be gathered. But as times changed and the habitats changed, deer have learned to live in and around people."

Ranta said young fawns born in an urban environment learn from their mothers about where to live and how to survive.  It's a "learned and adaptive behavior" that gets ingrained over time, he said. 

Feeding bylaws, hunts used to curb population

Ted Armstrong, a wildlife biologist and naturalist who lives in Thunder Bay said the urban deer in the northwest's largest city have a variety of reasons to live in it.

Armstrong said the food availability is good, especially in the winter, with cedar hedges and small fruit trees providing natural forage.

"Of course, a lot of people like to feed deer," he said. "And despite the city bylaws, it seems that that there's still quite a bit of that going on."

The Thunder Bay bylaw Armstrong refers to was passed in 2012. The bylaw prohibited the feeding of deer, seagulls or geese. Under the bylaw, people found intentionally feeding these animals could receive a fine up to $5,000.

Doug Vincent is Thunder Bay's licensing and enforcement manager. He said since his arrival in the city 2018 he hasn't received any complaints about feeding deer.

In an email to CBC News, Vincent said the city does get between 20-30 other wildlife feeding complaints in an average year, with squirrel feeding the number one irritant.

Vincent said his officers only respond to complaints and "don't patrol for such activities."

Another Thunder Bay bylaw that was passed in 2012 allowed for bow and arrow hunting for deer in certain areas of the city. The bylaw was passed to lower the "destruction of private and public property" by deer and also to reduce the possibility of vehicle collision.

There are a number of rules landowners have to follow to take part in the hunt including being within certain semi-rural areas; being in a tree stand three metres or higher above the ground and not baiting for the deer before November 1.

A similar urban bow hunting by law was also passed in Kenora, but Ranta is not sure it has had the desired effect there.

"There are certainly hunters who have harvested [urban] deer,' said Ranta. "But it doesn't seem to me that the hunt has had a noticeable impact on deer numbers."

The urban deer hunt may have had the intended effect in Thunder Bay, however. 

In 2013, there were 130 collisions between deer and vehicles in Thunder Bay, in 2021, that number dropped to 32, according to numbers from the city's engineering department. 

Both Ranta and Armstrong agree that at least some deer move into urban areas to escape predators.

Armstrong said grey wolves in particular are less likely to follow deer to where people are found. However, he said coyotes don't share that fear.

"Coyotes coexist pretty well with humans in our city and there is lots of natural habitat for them still," he said. "So I think the deer are here in higher numbers because there are fewer predators. But the the the flip side is the predators that can live closely with us - like coyotes - it probably does increase their density as well."

Armstrong noted that if the deer numbers fall, the coyotes can and will hunt other prey, including pets.

So is there a plus side to having urban deer?

Ranta thinks there may be.

He said having a stable urban deer herd may be able to help the wild herd recover more quickly.

He said due to a series of bad winters and habitat change, wild deer numbers are way down as compared to the peak population of the late 90s and early 2000s. 

'Having urban deer is like having a source spot population where they can start to fill in once conditions get better," Ranta said. "So that's a net positive."