YOUNGSTOWN — Hunters wishing to participate in the lottery part of the deer reduction program for the Mill Creek MetroParks this fall can visit the ODNR website to apply for a permit starting Monday, said Geoff Westerfield, assistant wildlife management supervisor for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife.

“The recreational hunting part is set,” Westerfield said last week. “It will be operated the same as it was last year.” The application period will be Monday to July 31, and the ODNR will draw the names of those selected to hunt in early August.

Nick Derico, MetroParks natural resources manager, confirmed by email that the MetroParks plans to carry out a similar deer reduction program this year as last year.

The hunting portion of the program that involves hunters being selected through an ODNR lottery could result in more or fewer deer being removed depending on the number of hunters who participate and weather conditions, Derico stated. It will begin Sept. 29 this year. That is the first Sunday of the statewide deer archery season.

Westerfield said it is too soon to speculate on the number of deer that will be removed through a program that involves U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooters killing deer at night. Last year, that part of the program was carried out only in a part of Mill Creek Park near the Mill Creek Park Golf Course in Boardman, north of U.S. Route 224.

But it could also be carried out in Hitchcock Woods and Huntington Woods, which are south of U.S. Route 224 in Boardman.

As with last year, sharpshooters may be deployed there depending on the number of deer removed from those parks through the ODNR lottery system, Derico said.

Derico said a decision on whether to deploy USDA-employed sharpshooters in the Hitchcock Woods and Huntington Woods preserves will not be made until after the ODNR hunting program in those parks in December.

But he said he thinks the number of deer that will be removed through the use of sharpshooters will be larger than the 38 removed last year using that method.

The MetroParks’ announcement of a deer-reduction program last year sparked angry protests at MetroParks board meetings and resulted in a lawsuit in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The suit was decided in the MetroParks’ favor, but it is under appeal with the 7th District Court of Appeals.

Last year’s program resulted in 204 deer being removed from the MetroParks from Oct. 1 to late January. Of the 204 deer, 38 were through the sharpshooters program over two nights near the golf course.

Westerfield said it’s too soon to say how many deer he will allow the MetroParks to remove through the sharpshooters program. The MetroParks does not have to submit its request for the number of deer it wants to remove by sharpshooters until 30 days before the date they plan to start shooting.

Westerfield said he is likely to receive a written request for those reductions no sooner than late August.

Westerfield noted the MetroParks has updated its deer management plan on its website with the results of a new aerial survey that was done on four dates in January and February, similar to the surveys done in 2022.

DRONES

One thing that is new this year is deer surveying using drones.

“In a continued effort to explore and utilize all possible survey methods, the MetroParks (tried out) the use of drones equipped with … thermal technology to survey the deer population at the McGuffey Wildlife Preserve and Springfield Forest in the early spring of 2024,” the updated management plan states. The plan was updated June 7, according to the document.

“These properties were selected due to their smaller size as a cost-effective way to (try out) the technology,” it states.

“This survey method detected 14 deer at McGuffey Wildlife Preserve and 19 deer at Springfield Forest, with these numbers being nearly identical to those produced by the 2024 aerial infrared survey flown by airplane (11 McGuffey, 21 Springfield),” the document states.

It adds that the MetroParks Board is “confident in the use of both survey methods moving forward. As an added benefit, the drone technology … had the ability to switch from a thermal camera to a standard camera with 200x zoom, which allowed the pilot to examine each thermal signature and confirm the presence of a deer.”

Members of the Save the Deer of Mill Creek Park group and others resoundingly criticized the 2022 aerial surveys, which estimated that the MetroParks contained an average of 387 deer per square mile. The newer aerial survey estimates there were 187 deer per square mile.

Derico said he cannot say for certain why the 2024 aerial survey showed fewer deer than the 2022 survey, but some possible reasons are weather conditions at the time of the survey, changes in the availability of food and the “newly introduced hunting pressure” from the deer reduction program.

He added that it is “important to remember that any survey method is simply a snapshot in time,” and “as time progresses and more data is collected using multiple survey methods, these trends will become more apparent.”

He said the deer-population data contained in the new aerial survey, trail cameras and drone usage — coupled with the data regarding the health of the vegetation in the parks — “tells us that continued (deer reductions) is needed.”

PLANT-DAMAGE SURVEYING

The updated MetroParks deer management plan states that the MetroParks staff initiated an ecological survey in June of 2023 aimed at quantifying the amount of plant damage the deer are causing on MetroParks properties. It looked at Mill Creek Park, Huntington Woods and Hitchcock Woods. But “moving forward, micro plots will be established and monitored at additional MetroParks facilities as staff availability allows,” the plan states.

Westerfield said the number of deer that he will approve for U.S.D.A. sharpshooter removal will partially be decided based on “what (the MetroParks) are seeing with vegetation, and they are still doing their vegetation surveys right now.”

Westerfield said he expects the MetroParks to ask for permission to remove 30 to 40 deer through sharpshooting, similar to last year.

“But you can’t hold me to that number because that is simply just looking at the surveys from this year,” he said. “But it’s not until I see everything in front of me will I make that full decision on what that number will be.”

In addition to what the MetroParks submits to him, “I do site visits. I do stuff that paints a picture of whether I am going to permit the number they requested or a higher or lower number. Ultimately we work together to come up with an agreed upon number,” he said.

He will continue to conduct site visits at the Mill Creek MetroParks, and he will make his decisions based on “what I am seeing on the ground and seeing the damage and seeing change since last year.”

It is too soon to do site visits because this is “fawning season,” so female deer may be having fawns outside of the park. He has to wait until the deer start coming back in the late summer. “Then I will do those assessments (based on) what I am seeing number wise, the amount of deer (markings), the amount of (vegetation) damage.”

He said he visited Mill Creek Park three to four weeks ago to look at the vegetation. He said it will be up to the MetroParks to determine whether the park vegetation improved as a result of the deer reductions last year.

“I put that on the park to do the quantifiables and do the survey and actually get data. They are supplying that to me,” he said.

He looks at the parks this time of the year “so that when I get the data, I can make some sense of what I saw in the summer and what I am seeing in the fall. There was deer damage there for sure.” He said plant life in the parks is just starting to “germinate and start growing just like your garden. It takes some time for that to start growing and take off.”

He said he has not heard any discussion of trying to do any deer reductions in the part of Mill Creek Park in the Youngstown city limits.

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