The Urban Forest

I am so lucky to live in such a green city, built by a great lake in an area of Canada that Natives used to call the Great Forest. Indeed, Toronto is a city of beautiful ravines and abundant greenery, and people sometimes forget that such spaces often mean that wildlife shares the city with us. In the last ten years at my school, I've seen coyotes, foxes, rabbits, possums, and skunks roam the lower schoolyard, and although I knew deer lived in the large park just a kilometre away from our school, I had never seen one before.

Until this morning. A beautiful young doe wandered up into the school yard. She had been seen by children and parents all week just past the grounds in an adjacent park, which surprised everyone as these animals are usually quite shy and not as bold as the other mammals we usually encounter. No one knows why the doe chose to come up towards the school, though it is possible that she was disoriented by the overnight snowfall and couldn't see past the blanket of white on the ground. Once up by the old building, she was greeted with dozens and dozens of loud, rambunctious children, filing onto the property just minutes before the entry bell. What followed was a horrendous scene: the doe attempted to jump over the main fence that separates the school grounds from the sidewalk and the road, and could not see the ledge under the snow. The poor thing slid or hit the cement in preparation for her leap, lost her footing, and hit the metal fence instead of clearing it. She snapped her neck and fell in front of a large group of children, twitching and bleeding, but mercifully dying quickly. The teacher on duty ushered everyone inside, and did a great job of keeping things in order despite his own horrified reaction.

I went up just a minute later to fetch my class, hearing that a deer was outside near a fence, but never imagining I would end up two feet away from it at our side doors. I pictured a fence near the bottom of our hill, and was so upset by the distress of the poor creature that I started to cry. I managed to get myself to the main office to get the staff to call animal services, and then went down to begin the day. Not an easy task, but the kids know that I am a tree-hugging, animal-loving hippie at heart, and so were quite sweet in trying to comfort me. I was quite impressed by a few of them, who had kept calm just feet away from the
panicked animal, and led their peers into the building just after the accident. I was further grateful to three of my girls who volunteered to put some added snow on the spot where the deer had fallen, which was still bloody after the morning recess, despite the removal of the animal. I was surprised that no one had thought to cover up the spot, because you could clearly see the outline of the body, along with soiling and blood. Wanting to spare anyone else from having to see the scene, I was relieved that these students were so kind to cover it up.

It is perhaps a blessing that the animal got caught on the fence and died shortly thereafter, because the alternative might have been a successful leap into traffic on a busy road surrounded by a congested sidewalk full of parents, children, and their dogs. It is not hard to imagine what a disaster it might have been for someone to hit the poor creature, or skid into other cars or people trying to avoid it. That scenario might have caused untold carnage, and resulted in a slow, painful death for the animal. How sad that the beautiful doe was caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time of day. Just five minutes later, and there would have been no one on the grounds to spook her and lead her to such a sad fate.