Mayor Scott Cullison admitted in City Council meeting Tuesday that city officials were wrong in trying to regulate the Murdock Canal where 15 ducks were shot and killed by an animal control officer in September.

Meanwhile, two more ducks were killed Sunday and a third wounded after a citizens committee placed them in an Orem pond for safety. The pond has a history of illegal hunting.In passing a resolution giving the ducks the right to be taken care of and giving a citizen ad hoc committee the right to respond to further duck complaints, the City Council deleted a reference to the canal. The original resolution said the ducks had a right to live in the canal. But City Councilman Dean Blackhurst noted that the canal was not city property and the city had no right to exercise control over it.

Cullison agreed and instructed staff to strike the reference from the resolution.

"We can't regulate the canal," he said. "We made a mistake trying to regulate it before."

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The September shooting was in response to a neighbor who complained about the noise. But other neighbors want the ducks and enjoy feeding them, said Melissa Gunn, a member of the citizens committee.

The committee on Saturday moved 11 surviving ducks, which are somewhat tame, to wetland property with a 12-acre pond in Orem for their safety. The next day two were killed and a third wounded. The property is posted with no hunting signs. At least one witness said he saw two teenage boys with shotguns in the area.

Darrel Clegg said hunters have killed birds illegally on his property, which is near Utah Lake, before.

"Two or three years ago I had 80 ducks and some geese down there. Hunters killed them all. They didn't last six weeks," he said. "They let most of them just lay there."

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