By Barry Kent MacKay, Director

What a cruel, and bizarrely complicated, mess.   There are countless human endeavors that fit that characterization but I write those words as my desk is covered with documents, and a series of disturbing photos, all in reference to currently unfolding events in the community of Cranbrook, tucked in among snow-covered mountain ranges down in the southeast corner of British Columbia.  It close to the border with the Montana.  That’s important, as I’ll explain in a moment, but first the photos.

They show one of too many victims of Cranbrook’s war on Mule Deer.  The antlers of this animal are entangled in the mesh of a trap, set to catch and hold deer alive.  That is at the behest of the Cranbrook’s municipal council.

The trap itself, known as a Clover trap (pictured below) after its design was published by the California Department of Fish…