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South Valley Riverton Journal

Herriman Live Capture and Relocation Plan Considered

Jan 27, 2016 08:28AM ● By Bryan Scott

By Hope Zitting | [email protected]

South Valley - The increasing number of deer within the boundaries of Herriman City have grown substantially over the last few years. 

“The purpose of the plan is that we have a deer problem and this kind of lays out what our issues are: health and safety of our residents and private property damage. One of the biggest issues is the auto-deer accidents that we’re trying to help reduce. Our goals are to provide safe roads and highways and significantly reduce the amount of deer within the city to a manageable level,” Justun Edwards, water director of Herriman City, said during the Jan. 13 city council meeting.

Herriman City has worked with the Divison of Animal Wildlife Resources to somewhat determine what that level might be. One of the most important things is to promote a safe, cost-effective program as a public service to the community, and then reduce private and public property damages, according to Edwards.

“We had to do a painstaking counting of deer. How accurate it is, I don’t know. It’s fairly accurate. We had our public works employees, as they drove through the city, they had maps and they marked on the maps where they saw the deer, what dates and how many. Based on those numbers, we set an objective after action plan to remove over 400 animals in a three year period, which the Core has approved for three years.”

The animals that would be taken with the approval of the Live Capture and Relocation Plan can be relocated using two different methods: lethal and non-lethal. The lethal plan was adopted in October 2015. The non-lethal plan will run from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31.The purpose of this discussion is to receive approval for the non-lethal plan. 

“The non-lethal plan is approved for year-round, only on the approval of the Division of Wildlife Resources,” Edwards said