CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Fernhaven Deer Cull Debate

For years, Fernhaven residents have complained about deer that strip their gardens and wander across Ridge Road, where collisions have doubled in five years. Council now contemplates what it has always avoided: a controlled cull. Licensed bow hunters would remove up to sixty animals each winter from woodlots on the outskirts of town, with the venison processed for the local food bank.

Councillor Neil Ostrowski, who tabled the motion, points to what the town has already tried. “We’ve put up warning signs, installed reflectors and handed out brochures on fencing. Softer solutions have run their course,” he contends. A recent survey counted roughly 280 deer within municipal limits, more than triple what biologists consider sustainable.

Dr. Aisha Rahimi, the wildlife biologist who conducted that survey, finds the numbers alarming but warns against mistaking a cull for a cure. Thinning a herd leaves more forage for the survivors, and well-nourished does typically bear more fawns. “Unless people stop feeding deer and the town protects its remaining woodland, we’ll be having this same argument in 2030,” she predicts. Her endorsement extends only to a cull embedded in a long-term strategy.

Mireille Thibodeau of the Fernhaven Humane Society rejects any killing, while acknowledging that the status quo is untenable. Her organization favours fertility control: veterinarians would capture does and administer a contraceptive vaccine effective for several years. Comparable programs have reduced herds in a handful of communities, she maintains, without stray arrows near walking trails. Municipal staff put the expense at roughly $1,000 per animal, a figure Thibodeau disputes. “Patience is the program’s true price,” she allows.

Gord Haldane, who has operated a market garden on the edge of town for thirty years, has lost patience with deliberation. Deer consumed approximately $8,000 of his produce last season, his electric fence notwithstanding. He has no objection to contraception in principle but doubts the town could ever finance it, and he dismisses woodland protection as “another study for the shelf.” His verdict: “Whatever reduces the herd this year, I’m for it.”

Mayor Colleen Barr has yet to declare where she stands.

Having narrowly missed a doe on Ridge Road last fall, I welcome this debate, though not every argument in it. Councillor Ostrowski is right that the town has exhausted 6. Choose…its goodwill toward archersa string of half-measuresits survey budgetfertility control; nobody can call a cull a first resort.

I respect the humane society, but by the town’s arithmetic and her own admission, Ms. Thibodeau’s plan would be 7. Choose…neither popular nor provenneither humane nor safeneither cheap nor quickneither lawful nor popular.

Dr. Rahimi raises the point council can least afford to ignore: the survivors may simply 8. Choose…drift back from the woodlotsgrow bolder around trafficturn to market gardensbreed their way back. So alongside any cull, council should tackle 9. Choose…residents feeding the deerthe cost of contraceptive vaccinesthe speed of traffic at duskcrop losses at market gardens and the sale of our last woodlots.

A cull is no pleasure, whatever the numbers. What reconciles me to the killing is where the carcasses end up: with 10. Choose…the hunters who take partthe gardeners who lost cropshouseholds relying on food donationsthe crews who counted the herd.