Mule deer hunting season is long over in Utah. Yet for a handful of contractors, police officers and volunteers in certain cities, they can nab a deer all the way until Dec. 31 — as long as the animals are in city limits.
It’s all part of the Utah Division of Wildlife’s urban deer program, which aims to control the urban deer population so they can better coexist with people, said Chad Wilson, the division’s wildlife coordinator.
As Utah grows and its cities push into deer territory — and as more deer abandon their bucolic natural habitats for residential streets — confrontations have increased. Deers can cause car crashes, munch on gardens and in general, be a nuisance, which is why the program was created about a decade ago.
“We didn’t have the manpower to be able to go out and to every city to take care of the problem. So [the program] was a way for us to say, ‘Look, we’re never going to be able to be as effective as you want us to be,’” Wilson said. “‘So if it’s that big of a problem, here’s some tools to help solve it.”
The method for removing deer varies from town to town, but most involve baiting, trapping and then killing the animals with a suppressed rifle. Municipalities are responsible for crafting their own “lethal removal” plans and reporting deer death tallies to the wildlife division each March, Wilson said.
Last year, urban hunters killed about 150 deer through the program — most of which were does, since the females drive population increases more than males. But the number of deer killed through the program also varies by location. Last year, Centerville had the most, with 48, followed by Springville with 37, while Pleasant Grove and Manti removed five or less.
In Bountiful, where city officials have had some kind of removal plan in place for about a decade, 24 were trapped and killed last year.
Bountiful city manager Gary Hill said officials came up with a plan because of resident complaints. The city aims to kill about 50 a year.
“Our goal is not to remove all the deer from Bountiful,” he said. “It’s just simply to to maintain the population if we can.”
How does the program work?
Hill said in Bountiful, interested residents can contact the city to have deer traps set up on their property. Currently, about 30 residents have asked for such soft-sided, netted cage traps, he said.
The traps are typically baited from August through December to avoid capturing young deer in the spring and summer, and to not traumatize deer that come down from the mountains in the winter seeking food and water.
(Division of Wildlife Resources) A trapped mule deer.
In Bountiful, Hill said they limit trapping on a sliding scale, dependent on proximity to the mountains. The closer to the mountains, the shorter the trapping season. Residents living above the golf course and North Canyon Park aren’t allowed to trap at all.
City employees regularly check the traps, Hill said, and will notify the resident when a deer is trapped. Then, a team of police officers respond and will shoot the animal with a suppressed .22-caliber rifle.
Many cities choose police to dole out this lethal force, Wilson said, because police have extensive firearm training. But not every city does.
Some instead partner with local sportsman shops to find willing archers, Wilson said. Springville contracted with a company to do such abatements. Next year, they’ll hire a seasonal employee, said police Lt. Warren Foster, “one with years of experience, and who already understands the program to continue with the abatement program.”
Is killing deer the only option?
When the program started, municipalities had two options: they could choose to kill the deer, or they could trap and relocate them.
That changed in 2019, when wildlife officials learned that about half the deer that program participants relocated didn’t survive the move, according to a news release.
“Turns out,” Hill said, “the deer that are born and raised in a city have a hard time adjusting to country life.”
Officials also worried about spreading illness, like chronic wasting disease. Some deer also had lice, Wilson said, and wildlife officials didn’t want them to spread to a rural population.
“We just got super uncomfortable,” Wilson said. “We don’t want to be the reason that we spread some deadly disease to parts of the state where it’s not.”
The wildlife division also found that relocating deer didn’t seem to control the population, because “translocation efforts didn’t significantly change public feedback regarding conflicts with urban deer,” they said in a news release.
Foster, with Springville police, said his city has participated in the program some years, but other years, they did not. When someone isn’t culling urban deer, Foster said they see more car-versus-deer crashes and residents notice more large herds gathering.
When a deer is killed through the program, officials ask that it doesn’t go to waste. First, it’s tested for disease, and in many cities, it’s donated to someone who could use the meat.
In Bountiful, Hill said people can email the city and ask to be put on the list. When a deer is killed, city officials send out an email and give the deer to whoever responds first.
“Virtually every deer we’ve taken in the last few years has been given away to a family in need,” Hill said, “which is really surprising and and gratifying.”
Another way to deal with problem deer is to make a home less hospitable to them. The “most effective way” to keep deer from eating gardens and landscaping, for instance, is by building a tall fence — at least 7.6 feet high, the wildlife division suggests.
Repellants, outdoor lighting, noise makers and even thorny plants don’t do much to keep “hungry” deer out, the wildlife division advises. Residents can protect their most highly susceptible plants by wrapping them with burlap or layers of plastic.
The good news is that most plants recover from deer grazing, which can even stimulate growth once the weather warms, and native plants have largely adapted.
For more information on living alongside mule deer, visit wildlife.utah.gov/md-home.html.
