West Valley City has put together a task force to catch a killer — but it's not a manhunt, it's a dog-hunt.
The city called in help Tuesday in an attempt to capture the canine that continues to kill animals at Roots Charter High School, but despite assistance from animal control departments in neighboring cities, the dog once again escaped. Now the the Utah Department of Natural Resources is promising to get involved.
(Photo: Scott D. Pierce) Animals at Roots Charter High School continue to be attacked and killed by a large German shepherd or German shepherd mix.
“You do what you have to do to solve the problem,” said West Valley City Mayor Ron Bigelow. “We will keep working on it until it’s solved. This can’t be allowed to continue.”
The attacks at the alternative school, where students raise vegetables and farm animals in addition to their classroom work, began in June.
To date, the dead animals include two alpacas, two goats, two sheep and a piglet. The piglet was killed just this week, and the dog has injured a number of other animals. Roots founding director Tyler Bastian estimated the cost of the animals killed at between $3,000 and $5,000 — which has “devastated” students who took out loans to buy the animals, raise them and sell them.
The farm animals “are so important to their education that when an animal dies, it greatly affects their educational experience,” he added.
The school has spent money trying to secure its perimeter fences, but Bastian said that's essentially a hopeless cause in this case.
“We had a neighbor who actually trapped the dog, and the dog cleared a 6-foot fence,” he said. “Animal control actually told me, ‘There really isn’t a fence you could put up that would keep this animal out.’ ”
The killer is a large German shepherd, possibly a German shepherd mix.
“The dog did belong to a homeless individual along the river, and he died. And so the dog is just running loose,” Bigelow said. “Although there are some people in the neighborhood who are friends with it and are feeding it. And they're not helping us.”
The Department of Natural Resources, on the other hand, is promising assistance. Kerry W. Gibson, the agency’s deputy director, said that could include large traps to capture the dog, “or maybe it’s just manpower. … It is heartbreaking to me to see these kids putting their blood, sweat and tears … into these projects and then see them being hurt so badly.”
Animal control has tried to corner the dog and to shoot it with tranquilizer darts. Bigelow did not rule out the possibility that the dog will have to be killed rather than captured.
“It may come to that,” he said. “But remember, we’re in a city. … It’s not like we can shoot the dog with homes right there.”
The dog is not killing and eating the farm animals; surveillance footage shows the canine essentially playing with its victims.
“This animal comes, it chases, it kills,” Bastian said. “It's not doing it for food, because it's getting plenty of food [from] the neighbors. It really is just having fun and for sport.”
The Roots livestock program is being curtailed for fear of more attacks.
“You can't bring a baby lamb in, because that would be the first thing to go,” Bastian said. Students have to house animals elsewhere, which “creates a financial burden on that family.”
If the dog isn’t captured in the next few days, the school will have to pay to house its pregnant alpacas elsewhere because “a baby alpaca that stands a foot-and-a-half tall is an easy target,” Bastian said. And that would not just create “financial stress” for the school but has the potential to “kind of ruin the program.”
“The school’s not going anywhere. So it’s not like it’s destroying the school. But it’s definitely destroying some of the experiences these kids should be having.”
Roots is trying to raise money with a gofundme campaign.
