Our wildlife mess | Life on the Rocks

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 2, 2026

By Steve Ulvi

Journal contributor

There are choices that come with modern island life, hardly related to the less constrained, more productive, simpler era just 50 years ago.

Most choices fit with the overall sense of rural place and community that still enchants us. Old places, suntanned barns, large trees and pastureland mosaics whisper of times behind us in an outsized seascape that appears unchanged to the uninformed.

This place is exalted and, despite the illusions of many, is not ecologically healthy nor very natural, but is certifiably picturesque and peaceful.

In a rural economy shriveled and transformed — by the sticky trap of summer overtourism, a pumped-up casino-like real estate market that warps rural values, the demise of resident Blackfish and erasure of the silver hordes that made the Pacific Northwest iconic — a large cross-section of local residents cling to “maintaining rural character” no matter how fuzzy or unhelpful for today’s community function and sustainability.

Yet we have inherited, and largely disown, an ugly reality that for several visible species of wildlife has resulted in wasting, starvation and pitiful viral death in the last few years following our own worrisome COVID era. Our strange relationships with pesky raccoons, toy red fox, dainty deer and the tales of a decades-long, destructive horror story of European hare population outbreaks still linger in a quirky, darkly humorous way.

Turning unwanted pets and caged creatures loose and luring wildlife to become predictable beggars seems to please people. In a rural, bush Alaska way, I do share offal from fish and meat I butcher with ravens.

Feeding wildlife is common. A few years back, chicken parts were flung to eagles that led to “Eagle Jams” on Roche Harbor Road, causing tourists to stop in the road, doors open, kids gushing, to film a “genuine wildlife spectacle,” a dozen or more screeching birds. Hubris and ignorance on full display.

Before COVID, we had two well-attended public meetings to share facts and inform landowners about potential solutions for our cyclic overpopulation of deer. Some prominent and vocal anti-hunters had the nerve to emphatically claim that hunting deer for food was cruel and no longer necessary. The tofu-eschewing hunters present firmly pushed back. Another confab followed at the Grange with state biologists.

Deer are ecological timebombs. Humane harvest needed. We know that countless generations of people enhanced oak woodlands with burning and would have harvested deer effectively on these islands. We know that encroaching settlers and all others hunted for venison. Dried salmon gets old. The gritty nature of historic lifeways in this place likely limited deer populations up into the 1980s. Modern bag limits and seasons upset the island’s “balance.”

A recent proposal by our Conservation Land Bank to carefully open small parcels within two preserves on Orcas Island to deer hunting and tribal only hunts to help avoid over-browsing is a standoff. Ecological diversity — insects, birds and forest floor flowering plants — was devastated islandwide, leading to starvation, costly car repairs, the viral crash and the smell of dead deer everywhere last time.

A wildlife feeding ordinance will reduce animal concentrations and roadkills, but the ghastly tragedy of starving deer hordes lacking more predation will repeat. A license should allow two deer (including one doe) and three or more for archery early in the increasing stages and thereafter. Bobcat introductions, anyone?