Claims of illegal deer hunting generated concerns earlier this month from the conservation authority and the community. Although officials say hunting has ceased and the urban park has reopened, the conservation authority is studying ways to address an overabundant deer population at Iroquoia Heights.

Steve Miazga, chief administrative officer for the Hamilton Conservation Authority, said the organization’s board expects a final report on the deer population sometime next spring.

Miazga addressed the results of an aerial census over a 10-kilometre stretch of the city that found 102 deer in the Iroquoia Heights area. An ideal number is 12.

“We will strike a committee with the relevant forces to determine how to deal with the issue,” Miazga said.

Miazga noted potential strategies would range from doing nothing to a deer relocation or an outright cull. Although the city’s bylaws do not permit hunting in an urban area, at least one ecologist believes a controlled hunt is the only solution to the deer problem.

Anne Yagi, a management biologist for the Ministry of Natural Resources, told Hamilton Community News she’s already verbally recommended such a hunt to the HCA. Yagi has ruled out non-lethal options, like moving the deer or injecting females with a birth control.

“Deer don’t do well to be moved,” she said earlier this year. They will die anyway from what’s called white-muscle disease and there’s no way we’re doing that. It’s brought on by sheer stress of being handled by people. Their muscles turn to liquid and they die.”

-WITH FILES FROM RICHARD LEITNER