Kerry County Council is rolling out two pilot schemes using advance technology that aims to prevent road traffic collisions involving deer.

The recent month meeting of the local authority heard that the technology would also seek to protect deer.

The move follows numerous calls in recent years from politicians and organisations for action to be taken on deer wandering onto the county's roads resulting in collisions.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) previously stated that it has no plans to fence off sections of the Killarney National Park to avoid accidents between motorists and deer.

Kerry County Council said the first pilot scheme comprises a ‘detection and alert’ scheme.

This will be delivered in conjunction with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) on the outskirts of Killarney on the N70 near Ballydowney where a large number of deer cross the road between the national park to nearby agricultural land.

It is expected that this scheme will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

The second initiative the ‘deterrent system’ is a joint initiative between KCC, University College Cork (UCC) and the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) Michael Healy-Rae.

This pilot system utilises technology adapted from that used to control and prevent bird strikes at airports.

The council was told that when deer approach the road and activates an audible alarm is activated which discourages the animals from crossing the road when vehicles are present.

This scheme will be initially trialled on the R569 between Kilgarvan and the N22 Killarney to Cork road.

The local authority said that UCC will monitor the schemes once operational collating the data and analysing effectiveness.

Depending on the success of these pilot projects,the technology may be expanded to other locations around the county of known deer activity.