YOUNGSTOWN — The William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society is asking the Mill Creek MetroParks board to clarify that no deer reductions will take place in the McGuffey Wildlife Preserve in Coitsville Township.

Attorney David Engler has written a letter to Lee Frey, president of the parks board, and other board members on behalf of the McGuffey historical society.

The letter states that part of the agreement between the society and the Mill Creek MetroParks made in 1998 when the society turned over the 73-acre property to the MetroParks was that the property “will be used as a wildlife preserve” and that the park system “will plant trees and shrubs for wildlife habitation in suitable areas.”

The letter states: “We read with interest that Mill Creek (MetroParks) on Monday at a board meeting approved the culling of the deer population in Mill Creek Park by hunters.

“We would like assurances that this policy is not going to be applied to” the McGuffey Wildlife Preserve.

The letter asks for the MetroParks to respond within two weeks, adding that an “affirmative response promising that the parcel transferred to the park district by the society will not be used for hunting will alleviate any need for further legal action.”

The MetroParks has proposed carrying out controlled hunts in 11 parks — including the McGuffey preserve — to reduce the deer population. Controlled hunts would begin this fall and would involve hunters being chosen at random through a lottery conducted by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife.

They primarily would be archery hunting, but firearm hunting “will be incorporated at select regional facilities,” the MetroParks has said.

The MetroParks plan, which the MetroParks Board approved, also includes a “targeted” method of reducing deer in Mill Creek Park, which is from Fellows Riverside Gardens south to U.S. Route 224, and other urban and suburban parks. That method also would be used in Yellow Creek Park in Struthers.

Targeted removal involves “federally employed professional marksmen” using firearms with noise suppressors on their firearms. U.S. Department of Agriculture employees do this work during the winter as part of their jobs, MetroParks officials have said.

No hunting will take place on three MetroParks properties — the Egypt Swamp Preserve, Cranberry Run Headwaters and the MetroParks Bikeway. The first two will not have hunting because they do have have public access, such as a parking lot. The bikeway will not have hunting because of it its shape as a long, narrow path.

In addition to the McGuffey Preserve, the other parks slated for controlled hunts are Hitchcock and Huntington Woods, both off Route 224 in Boardman; Collier Preserve, a short distance east; Mill Creek Wildlife Sanctuary, just south of there in Beaver Township; Sawmill Creek Preserve, just north of Canfield; Vickers Nature Preserve, in Ellsworth Township; the MetroParks Farm just south of Canfield; Sebring Woods near Sebring; Hawkins Marsh in Berlin Township; and Springfield Forest in Springfield Township.

In recent times, the William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society repeatedly has urged the MetroParks to restore and maintain what the society has called a pond and former dock in the preserve.

In the past year, the society has also urged the MetroParks to turn over the preserve to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to operate or to operate the preserve with the ODNR.

But the MetroParks has refused to turn over the property and has argued that it is maintaining the preserve correctly.

The preserve, known as The William Holmes McGuffey Boyhood Home site, was designated a registered national historic landmark in 1966. The property was once the home of William Holmes McGuffey, author of the McGuffey Eclectic Readers, a series of textbooks that became the standardized reading text for most schools across the United States during the mid-to-late 19th century.

His family moved to Coitsville in 1802, according to various historical accounts.