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Show Night Herding of Deer Necessary If Trees Are Saved Half-starved deer in the Battle Creek-Dry canyon area, between 700 and 800 of them, are invading young orchards and berry patches, inflicting uncounted damage, ac-cordingto ac-cordingto Roy Smith, President of the Pleasant Grove Wildlife Federation. Fed-eration. ' The winter range in this area, Mr. Smith said, is not large e-nough e-nough to take care of the herd. "The winter grounds of the deer in this area have been dessimated due to the fact that dry farms and orchards now supplant the winter range formerly used by the deer. The state big game department, depart-ment, with the assistance of local soprtsmen, is now feeding the deer, but hay does not solve the problem. The deer seem to like hay for only about three days, then roam through fields and orchards in search of feed they like," Mr. Smith said. Mr. Smith said that whether a pellet could be developed in which vegegtatlon eaten by deer could be incorporated, was open to question. I "It appears that the local sportsmen will have to cooperate with the game department in night herding the deer from orchards orch-ards ,or husbandmen will have no other choice than to kill them. Tfiey cannot stand by to have their young orchards killed and thus ruin their livelihoods. Some sportsmen don't want to night herd then want their deer and eat them too!" Mr. Smith em-; phaized. The wildlife president stated that if some of the sportsmen would try to save the herd at this time, with the same energy they kill them in the fall, the pro-problem pro-problem could be solved. Deer have also destroyed shrubs on lawns in areas here and in Orem, making further inroads into the depredations. "Orchard men are being fair in their trial. It is the young orchards orch-ards that are taking most of the punishment, the older orchards seem to withstand the molestation by deer better," Mr. Smith said. The deer are most prevalent in the Ruben Tomlinson, , Leonard Fryer, Harry and Forrest Loader areas. They have also been seen roaming on the streets of Pleasant Pleas-ant Grove in search of food, Mr. Smtih stated. "The Pleasant Grove Wildlife Federation solicits the help of all sportsmen,, to help . solve the deer problem, and also the townspeople. Our deer are big industry, and we must try to preserve the herds without hurting farms and orchards," orch-ards," Mr. Smith concluded. |