“My client doesn’t control where the deer and the turkeys go,” said Zane Froerer, representing Margot Smelzer as well as Kenith and Karoline Peterson, neighbors who live across the street from Smelzer.

Six neighbors are suing Smelzer and the Petersons in 2nd District Court in Ogden, charging that feed they put out for turkeys and deer in the fall and winter draws the animals to the area in large numbers, resulting in damage to their property. “Defendants deliberately feed and attract wild turkeys and deer to their residences and persist in doing so in spite of repeated polite, yet insistent, requests made by Plaintiffs and others that Defendants stop,” reads the suit, filed in April.

The Standard-Examiner spoke last week with Greg Stuart, one of the neighbors behind the suit, which calls for a halt to the defendants’ feeding efforts and damages of at least $50,000. The defendants didn’t initially respond to queries seeking comment, but Froerer spoke Thursday, countering the charges his clients face.

“The allegations are the animals are there because my clients are feeding them. They’re going to have to prove that’s why the animals are there and not because this is an ideal place for turkeys and deer to winter,” Froerer said. He says the lawsuits — one against Smelzer, the other against the Petersons — are without merit.

In the suits, Froerer’s clients admit to putting out feed for turkeys, though not deer. But Froerer maintains that it’s the geography of the town, the proximity of water sources and the environment that bring the animals to the town, surrounded by forests and largely undeveloped land.

“The environment, the geography is responsible for bringing them there. You have the (Pineview) reservoir, you have the South Fork River basin, river bottoms. These are ideal places for these animals to come and to winter,” Froerer said.

Furthermore, he said, the potential presence of wild animals is part of living in a relatively rural place like Huntsville, for good or for bad. Those moving to places like Huntsville, the counterargument goes, need to realize the presence of wild animals is a possibility and that the critters aren’t always going to abide by what humans want them to do.

“It’s not just Snow White, you know, dancing around the forest and all the animals hopping, just doing what you want them to do,” he said. “They’re wild animals. They’re going to go where they want to go.”

Stuart and the other neighbors say in their suit that the abundance of turkeys has resulted in large accumulations of droppings in their yards and on the roofs of their homes, necessitating cleanup efforts and causing damage. The droppings, moreover, pose a health hazard, they charge, and the big birds damage trees where they roost.

Stuart provided the Standard-Examiner with a video from last December that shows someone outside the Smelzer home scattering what seems to be feed, drawing a big gathering of turkeys.

Froerer, meanwhile, rebuffs the notion that his clients are responsible, noting they’ve cooperated with Utah Division of Wildlife Resources officials in efforts to remove turkeys from Huntsville. Huntsville, he says, is located in an area with plenty of wildlife and their presence is, perhaps, inevitable.

“We feel confident we’re going to be able to show that the plaintiffs’ properties are in the transitory corridor regardless of what the defendants are doing,” he said.