Deer roadkill numbers may double last year’s

A file photo of Hailey Larson, a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources technician, picking up a dead deer.

LOGAN – Hailey Larson loves her job as a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources technician.

Hailey Larson, a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources technician, picked up dead deer on Monday, March 20, 2023.

Working with animals was her chosen career.

My job is removing nuisance animals,” she said. “I work in Cache, Weber, Davis, Morgan, Box Elder, Morgan, Rich and Summit counties.”

Monday, in Millville across from Little Wonders Learning Center, she pulled up in front of a dead deer and used protective gloves and boots to drag the carcass to the rear of her truck. Then she hooked the deer legs to a hoist cable and turned the crank to pull up the deer high enough to push into the back of the truck.

Larson is not much bigger than the animal she’s putting in the pickup bed, but she manages to load it into the back of the pickup.

The Ridgeline High School graduate went to Utah State University and earned a degree in Wildlife Ecology Management then took a job with DWR when she finished.

“I went to USU to become a veterinarian,” she said. “Being a vet took more schooling, so I decided to study wildlife management.”

Hailey Larson, a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources technician, uses an app to locate dead dear in Northern Utah on Monday, March 20, 2023.

This time of year she spends her days retrieving deer and other animals that have been hit and killed by cars using the DWR Utah Roadkill Reporter app by vehicles in Cache Valley.

“We have different lifts on trucks that pick up bigger animals like elk or moose,” she said. “It usually takes two people to load the bigger animals.”

DWR is seeing more animals moving down low this year because the lack of feed and snow depth that has forced the animals into more populated places.

“I picked up a total of 31 deer on Monday; that is a record for me in one day,” she said. “I also pick up deer from people’s yards or sick dear, when they are stuck in fences or injured.”

She is informed where the deer are when people use the DWR Utah Roadkill Reporter app. People can use the app and to tell them where the deer are after being hit by a car.

It’s not only deer, we are seeing and removing an incredible amount of other animals from yards. It has been overwhelming, it’s been crazy.”

Jim Christensen the Wildlife Manger for the Northern Utah Region said he has not analyzed the numbers for Cache Valley alone this winter, but as far as he number of Northern Region goes, the numbers the number of nuisance calls have doubled.

“Nuisance calls for mainly dead and injured deer have doubled this year compared to last year,” he said. “I’m sure that the numbers of calls for Cache Valley mirror what we are seeing in other counties in Northern Utah.”

Hailey Larson, a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources technician, cranks the hoist to pick up dead dear on Monday, March 20, 2023.

DWR works closely with the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) to reduce highway automobile crashes.

It was estimated 4,900 deer were killed in vehicle collisions and removed from roadways in 2022. The number of deer killed is likely significantly higher because many incidents go unreported.

If not for the crossing structures across the state, those numbers could be much higher.

Hailey Larson, a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources technician, uses a hoist to pick up dead dear in Millville on Monday, March 20, 2023.

Since 2005, UDOT has spent over $47 million on fencing, highway-bypass structures and other activities to help both mule deer and elk.

DWR also funds Utah State University studies to identify the most effective types of highway-bypass structures to keep wildlife safe as well as attempting to determine how many deer are killed on Utah highways each year.

The Insurance Information Institute said data from State Farm indicates U.S. drivers had 1.9 million animal collision insurance claims in the U.S. between July 2021 and June 2022. The most animal-auto collisions involve deer (67 percent in the latest period).

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3 Comments

  • Mark Schiele March 23, 2023 at 8:05 pm Reply

    Need to let us pick up the road kill like in Idaho.

  • HP March 23, 2023 at 9:26 pm Reply

    Someone needs to edit captions! The caption under Mrs Larsen says the tech was picked up dead!

  • Brian Evans March 24, 2023 at 12:14 pm Reply

    I was hoping the article would indicate where these dead animals are disposed of, like a rendering plant or?

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