Why removing a dead deer from the Thames River wasn't a situation of passing the buck

Jack Sutton · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 13, 2025 4:39 PM EDT | Last Updated: June 13

Warning: Some readers whitethorn find photos successful this communicative distressing.

When a cervid turned up dormant successful the Thames River adjacent a engaged downtown conception of the Thames Valley Parkway this week, it was specified a uncommon concern that officials weren't definite who should region it, oregon if it should beryllium removed astatine all. 

"It's unsightly," pedestrian Raquel Lopez said, spotting the cervid erstwhile she walked implicit the King Street Bridge.

"It's going to interruption down and past there's going to beryllium different things eating it and causing each kinds of different problems."   

The carcass was archetypal reported connected Thursday greeting and the metropolis received aggregate much calls astir it. People were redirected to the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA), who typically deals with matters related to the waterway.

But the UTRCA bounced the contented backmost to the city. It said it doesn't remove carcasses from the river. 

Dead animals frequently crook up successful the river, according to Brandon Williamson who is successful complaint of onshore absorption astatine the UTRCA. The quality is that they typically amusement up successful agrarian areas, distant from the nationalist eye, helium said.

"It's a earthy process," Williamson explained, adding that cervid who are sick oregon injured mightiness instinctively gravitate to a assemblage of water.

Both the metropolis and the UTRCA stressed however unsocial this concern was, saying it is astir apt a first. On Friday afternoon, the metropolis said they had hired a backstage contractor to region the deer. 

If it happens again, who is successful charge?  

"This was a unsocial concern that took further measures to respond to but we're gladsome to study it's been resolved," Paul Yeoman, the Director of Parks and Forestry for the metropolis said. 

"We mostly don't have dead wildlife successful oregon on the stream that needs to beryllium addressed to this scale," helium said.

Without hiring an extracurricular company, removal of a carcasse isn't straightforward. The metropolis says the stream isn't its jurisdiction, and it has to see the information of its unit and the section ecosystem. 

The conservation authority's Williamson said, that portion it is liable for managing the river, removal of wildlife and debris is mostly a relation of a municipality. The quality present is that the wildlife doesn't usually request removal from a stream wrong metropolis limits. 

City unit program to debrief the situation, Yeoman said, to find what to bash if it happens again. 

It's not known wherefore the cervid died, but Williamson said if nary 1 had stepped up to region the carcass, it apt would have decomposed, with scavengers similar turkey vultures or a coyote helping with the process.