Ottawa moose death leads to squabble

The police shooting death of a moose near an Ottawa school this week has left officials at odds about who was responsible.

"I think there's been a lot of buck passing pardon the pun between the city, the NCC [the National Capital Commission] and the [Ontario] Ministry of Natural Resources," said Donna Dubreuil, founder of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre Wednesday.

She said when she first heard about the two young moose that wandered into a residential part of the Orlans neighbourhood Tuesday, she anticipated an unfortunate outcome. "Because I think there's just a lack of co-ordinated response in this city."

Neither the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources nor the National Capital Commission nor the City of Ottawa sent wildlife personnel to the scene.

'I can't stress enough that the necessity for this is very rare.' Christine Hartig, City of Ottawa

Ottawa police corralled the animals behind cole lmentaire catholique des Pionniers on Merkley Drive. On the advice of the MNR, they hired a zookeeper to tranquillize the animals so they could be relocated. However, the animals escaped into the neighbourhood after being hit with tranquillizer darts. One was eventually shot to death by police in a neighbouring backyard, while the other fled into the woods.

Const. Jean-Paul Vincelette said police struggled for seven hours to deal with the moose, and had been counting on outside help.

"The Ministry of Natural Resources normally would get involved. But in this instance the MNR was not available," he said.

A statement from Supt. Charles Bordeleau saida private agency was also contacted, but they were unable to attend, and the National Capital Commission (NCC) advised that they did not have the authority or jurisdiction to respond to this incident.

Jolanta Kowalski, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said that while the MNR can provide technical advice about how to deal with wildlife issues on city property, the landowner is ultimately responsible. She added that the ministry has been urging the city for two years to contract a third party to handle wildlife problems.

"There's an importance to having a process and procedure in place so that incidents like this can be handled quick and hopefully without any injury to people or the animal."

Contract expired

The city previously had a wildlife management contract with the National Capital Commission, the agency that manages federal lands and buildings in the Ottawa-Gatineau area, including the greenbelt, Gatineau Park and the Rideau Canal.

But the city said the commission wastoo busy withits own priorities. The city decided not to renew the contract when it expired in 2008.

Christine Hartig, a policy officer with the City of Ottawa's emergency and protective services department, said municipal officials disagree with the MNR that the city needs a new contract.

'If the ministry is simply just going to abdicate any responsibility for wildlife in those areas, then what is it left to do?' Donna Dubreuil, Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre

"I find it interesting that they feel that their responsibility is to raise this," she said. "But we know what's going on in our city. And we know what needs we have. And I can't stress enough that the necessity for this is very rare."

But Dubreuil thinks given the amount of green space and wildlife habitat throughout the city, linkages between them and the city's goal to be a green and environmentally responsible city, it needs to take the initiative.

The MNR should also step up and take the lead, she said.

She noted that more than 80 per cent of Ontario's population lives in urban areas.

"If the ministry is simply just going to abdicate any responsibility for wildlife in those areas, then what is it left to do? I think that they do have a primary role and they need to have a primary role."

She added that while she respects the job police attempted to do on Tuesday, they're not wildlife specialists and their role should simply have been crowd control.

The city says it will hold a debrief about the moose incident with all the agencies involved.

Dubreuil is also planning to bring all the parties together for a discussion about a new wildlife strategy for the city.