YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals has affirmed the ruling of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Donofrio’s that Mill Creek MetroParks has the authority to carry out a deer reduction plan.

Marc Dann, an attorney for the property owners living near the park system who filed the lawsuit, said Wednesday he will take it to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 7, 2023, several weeks before MetroParks planned to begin its deer reduction plan, which met with great opposition at MetroParks board meetings where it was discussed and approved by the MetroParks board of commissioners. The reductions started Oct. 1, 2023, after Magistrate Nicole Butler, who works for Donofrio, ruled against a preliminary injunction associated with the lawsuit asking for an order preventing killing of the deer.

She then ruled against the property owners in March on their argument MetroParks did not have the legal authority to carry out a deer reduction, and Donofrio affirmed her decision.

Aaron Young, MetroParks executive director, said of the appeals court’s ruling, “We are pleased with the recent ruling of the court of appeals in this matter and look forward to continued success of the program.”

The park district is in its second year of deer reductions.

The appeals court ruling from Judges Katelyn Dickey, Carol Robb and Mark Hanni summarized the property owner’s position as contending there is no provision in an Ohio law governing park districts that gives them “express authority to kill, cull, reduce, hunt or eradicate deer in a public park.”

A park district is limited to the powers “conferred upon it by the enabling statute,” and “may also have implied powers, which are limited to those that ‘may be reasonably necessary to make the express power effective,'” the ruling states.

Ohio law gives a park board authority to do things such as acquire property and employ law enforcement, but the statute “contains no separate section articulating the (park) board’s specific duties with respect to management and control of the park district,” so the MetroParks relies on another statute that pertains to a park district’s bylaws, rules and regulations, the ruling states.

Those bylaws and rules are “for the preservation of good order within and adjacent to parks and reservation of land and for the protection and preservation of the parks, parkways and other reservations of land under its jurisdiction and control and natural life therein,” the ruling states.

The ruling also states a 2000 appeals court ruling regarding a similar challenge to deer reductions in the Cleveland area that found the Legislature gave the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife “exclusive control over wildlife in Ohio” and the permitting process the division uses to manage deer populations in Ohio “served the interests of the DOW in meeting its statutorily-imposed responsibilities to properly manage the deer population in Ohio.”

The Youngstown-based 7th District judges ruled the “uncontroverted testimony” at a hearing in the lawsuit in September 2023 “established widespread ecological damage to the park district caused by white-tailed deer.” And the MetroParks board “was required to determine the best course of action to both protect and preserve the ecosystem and the white-tailed deer population,” the ruling states.

The judges found making such a decision to reduce the deer population is “within the implied statutory authority vested in the (MetroParks) board to manage and control the park district,” the ruling states.