More than 300 deer at Marineland have been the focus of a months-long investigation by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency amid allegations that an animal broker has been improperly removing hundreds of others from the park, including those pledged to a small business, sources have told The Canadian Press.
The amusement park in Niagara Falls, Ont., closed to the public since 2024, is up for sale and sources say a deal for the land is in place with the condition that all animals must be gone before the sale closes. The deer, like the 30 belugas and four dolphins that remain at the park, are expected to be moved off the property within the next few months.
While efforts to relocate Marineland’s whales have made international headlines, the curious case of the park’s deer has been unfolding out of the spotlight for years.
Over the last decade, Marineland has been home to hundreds of fallow deer, red deer and elk. During that time, it was also home to bears and bison that have since been moved off the property, with the 12 bears going to a Colorado sanctuary in mid-May.
Marineland began looking to get rid of its land animals after Marie Holer, the wife of the park’s late founder and visionary John Holer, put the sprawling tourist attraction up for sale in 2023. At that time, Marineland had already begun talks to move its four dolphins and 30 belugas, the last such mammals held in captivity in Canada.
Two years ago, Marineland put the word out that it would offer its deer, free of charge, to those who wanted the animals. Some of them are worth upwards of several thousand dollars each if sent to a slaughterhouse to be butchered for meat. The red deer and elk are also valued for their antlers.
By last fall, some 700 or so fallow deer, red deer and elk remained. The Canadian Press spoke to several sources at Marineland and agreed not to name them because of their fear of recrimination, and in order to better understand the situation unfolding there.
In early 2024, Marineland began discussions with a number of people and organizations who had shown some interest in helping out with the deer situation. Over the next two years, there were talks with several people in northern Ontario who were up for taking several dozen deer each to start their own herds. The Toronto Zoo and Parc Safari in Quebec were also willing to help out, sources said.
Carole Lyne Laramée began talks with Marineland about its deer two years ago. She runs a small antler jewelry business, Northern Antlers, near Timmins, Ont., where she and her husband, Lawrence, have a little more than 100 hectares of land.
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They wanted a herd of deer so they can use their antlers when they fall off every year. Emails from Marineland’s veterinary technician Kelly Snider, seen by The Canadian Press, show the park’s board had agreed to the move and was flexible on how many deer Laramée could take.
The couple eventually agreed to take all of the red deer at Marineland, about 150 of them. They began the arduous process of clearing a 15-metre-wide perimeter to build a fence that wraps around a 3.5-hectare section, or about five football fields, of forest for the deer.
That enclosure cost more than $100,000 to build, Laramée said in an interview.
Her husband suffered an injury at work last fall, severing nerves and tendons in his arm, and the couple punted the deer move to spring 2026. They had also negotiated with Marineland to take two elderly red deer, Snuggles and Winnie, and an old fallow deer named Kay.
Meanwhile, a man named Mike Hart began showing up at Marineland last November, sources at the park said. On several consecutive Saturdays, he loaded deer on a trailer and left, the sources said.
Hart and his late father, Brian, who are both in the animal business, are longtime family friends of the Holers. In 2011, Brian Hart pleaded guilty to illegally importing three live kulans, members of the wild ass family, and was ordered to pay $8,000.
Marineland workers eventually complained to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, alleging Mike Hart was not moving the deer with the proper permissions and inoculations required by the provincial and federal governments, the sources said.
The CFIA is revealing little about the ongoing probe. It’s investigating the movements of cervid species, which include deer, from Marineland “to determine whether all applicable regulatory requirements were followed,” the agency said in an email.
“More recently, cervids have been moved in accordance with a CFIA-issued cervid movement permit. The CFIA will continue to work with the applicant to review any requests for permits to move animals from Marineland.”
The CFIA declined to answer followup questions about the case, citing the Privacy Act.
Marineland sources said the CFIA has shut down the movement of male deer from the park as three of them recently injured their growing antlers, leaving them bloodied. Both Marineland and the workers said the deer have since been treated and are healing.
Laramée said Marineland had been pressuring her to take all of its 150 red deer, but that offer was pulled by March.
“I have been advised by Marineland that the cervids are under new ownership and no longer belong to Marineland,” the park’s veterinary technician wrote in an email to Laramée on March 25.
“Therefore, they can only be moved off the property by their owner. These circumstances are out of my control and I apologize for the situation this must put you in.”
Laramée said she was beside herself. “It’s devastating in so many ways: financially, emotionally and mentally.”
Laramée tried to change Marineland’s mind, but said they largely ghosted her, other than passing along Mike Hunt’s contact information.
She said she spoke with Hunt a few times, though the two couldn’t agree on a deal and Hunt was only willing to send her a dozen deer.
Hunt has already moved several hundred deer out of Marineland but it is unclear where they went, the sources said.
He did not respond to several calls, texts and emails from The Canadian Press seeking comment.
Marineland said John Holer made a deal to give his old friend Brian Hart and his son Mike the park’s deer, elk and bison. The park said it found out about the agreement after Marie Holer’s death, and the Harts presented Marineland with evidence of the deal, which was accepted.
Marineland said the responsibility for the deer’s move is Hunt’s alone.
“Marineland has provided access to the site to the owner as it is required to do and Marineland assumes that the owner has taken all the appropriate regulatory steps in order to move the animals,” Marineland said in a statement.
“We understand that the CFIA is aware of what’s happening and is taking steps to ensure that it’s in compliance.”
Marineland said it had homes lined up “for all” the deer, but could not split them up in the end.
“The CFIA said that we had to move the whole herd, all the deer and elk, together,” it said.
Laramée said she doesn’t buy that explanation. But by the end of June, she decided to move on.
She and her husband still plan to work together on their property with a deer herd and run it both as a farm and an antler jewelry business. But they’ve spent their savings on that property and will have to save up again to start a small herd, likely years from now.
“Every single penny went into building the infrastructure, otherwise we would have saved some of it, made it smaller, and been able to start a farm right away,” she said. “But that’s not the case because of how things went.”
Since they have the infrastructure built, Laramée said she is also looking into turning the property into a wildlife rehabilitation centre to help injured or orphaned animals such as moose.
“We just need to pivot and that’s life,” she said.
