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Hunters asked to properly dispose of carcasses

BY KEITH LACEY The Ministry of Natural Resources is urging all area hunters to properly dispose of animal remains after a deluge of recent complaints by area citizens during this busy hunting season.
MNR_Animal_Carcass

BY KEITH LACEY

The Ministry of Natural Resources is urging all area hunters to properly dispose of animal remains after a deluge of recent complaints by area citizens during this busy hunting season.

"We're trying to get a proactive message to hunters to properly get rid of animal remains," said Brian Morrison, enforcement supervisor with the Sudbury MNR's Sudbury district office.

"We've had a lot of calls to our tip line about hunters leaving remains at the end of city streets or in roadside ditches...members of the public and land owners are finding these remains and are not happy about it."

The MNR has received numerous calls every  day over the past couple of weeks about improperly discarded animal carcasses, said Morrison.

He wants to make it clear most hunters properly dispose of animal parts and it's not illegal to leave animal remains on Crown property, but the MNR would prefer if all remaining animal parts were brought to the local landfill site.

Animal remains brought to the landfill site should be properly "double bagged" and covered. It's suggested landfill staff be forewarned before hunters take a trip to the dump before discarding animal remains so space is set aside to bury this material immediately and keep wild animals away, said Danielle Braney, acting director of assets and solid  waste for the City of Greater Sudbury.

Morrison said the ministry won't ask citizens to stop providing tips about discarded animal parts being left on private property, but said conservation officers have much more important work to do than spending time on these calls.

"We're getting all these calls on our tip line and we encourage the public to keep calling because we've initiated numerous good investigations due to these calls, but we do have a limited amount of resources and our conservation officers can be out doing much more important work than having to travel to every complaint about discarded animal remains," said Morrison.

On Wednesday alone, the tip line received four calls about discarded animal found by land owners in residential neighbourhoods in Greater Sudbury, said Morrison. The calls included two moose heads and discarded deer legs .

"It's just not appropriate to leave animal parts in a residential neighbourhood," said Morrison. "We believe if we get the message out and encourage a proactive approach, hunters will listen and take all remaining animal parts to a more appropriate location.

"A prime example is earlier this week we got calls about a boned out moose head being dumped in a city snowplough turnaround area...hundreds of people would drive by and see this and it's just not appropriate."

It takes, on average, three hours for a conservation officer to attend a public complaint call, talk to the land owner, investigate and return to work, said Morrison.

"These calls take up a lot of investigative time and to be quite honest we'd rather have our conservation officers out doing more important work than investigating misplaced animal remains," he said.

"We're just asking hunters who are not complying to use a little common sense in disposing of this stuff."

With the mainland deer hunt starting earlier this week and the Manitoulin Island deer hunt scheduled to begin Nov. 20, Morrison said this is a very busy time for the MNR and officers and he's confident this public message will help the situation.



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