A lost elk was shot by Ottawa Police near Albert Street and City Centre Avenue at around 2:00 p.m. following unsuccessful attempts to sedate the animal.
A police sniper killed the elk with a single shot. It had strayed into a patch of undeveloped land near Bayview station, just west of downtown.
“This is all about public safety. If an 800 pound elk gets running in the streets, the results could be disastrous,” acting investigator John McGetrick said.
The elk is believed to have been wild and not from a local farm.
Police were called about the animal just after 7:30 a.m.
The National Capital Commission, which owns the land, cooperated with police to explore the option of tranquilizing the animal. The City of Ottawa, NCC, Ottawa Police, and Ministry of Natural Resources collaborated on the issue.
“Officers could not get close enough to [tranquilize] it safely. The animal was showing increased signs of aggression,” McGetrick said.
"Experts made it clear that if that elk bolted, which it had the potential to do, it would be a severe public safety issue for folks in the community. So, with deep regret, the decision was made to destroy the animal as humanely as possible.”
Police redirected vehicle and foot traffic from the Albert Street bridge over the O-Train line at around noon. O-Train and OC Transpo bus service were suspended as officers with rifles took aim at the elk.
McGetrick said experts from the ministry were consulted but did not attend.
“We never second guess police on what they consider to be a public safety issue,” Jolanta Kowalski, senior media relations officer for the Ministry of Natural Resources. She said it would be unusual for the ministry to be at the scene and there is a protocol between the NCC, City of Ottawa, and natural resources when responding to animal sightings.
Kowalski said the ministry’s response depends on who owns the land and it would not tranquilize an animal unless it is sufficiently contained. The ministry offered two potential relocation sites on Crown land for the animal if it could be captured.
“It is very difficult to try tranquilise an animal that large in an area where that animal was,” Kowalski said.
“No one wanted to do this, unfortunately there were no other options,” officer McGetrick said.
Onlookers weren’t pleased with the police’s solution to the issue.
“I just feel that the right people were not down here to deal with it,” said Kate Davis, a biologist who was nearby when the shot rang.
“We thought the animal was going to get tranquilised instead of shot,” said Rebecca Jones, a bystander. “To hear that they killed it was really disappointing.”
The Ministry of Natural Resources has been trying to increase the elk population in Ontario. It relocated elk from Alberta to Ontario between 1998 and 2001.
The 2012 provincial elk population estimate is between 648 and 916 animals, whereas in 2004 there were an estimated 375 to 440 elk in Ontario, according to the ministry’s website.