DEAR EDITOR:

The recent letter voicing support for electing Mill Creek Park Commissioners merits rebuttal. State Representative McNally’s bill will not result in park commissioners appearing on the ballot, nor their being more responsive to the “Save the Deer” group. Board members will be a member of Youngstown City Council, Boardman Township Trustees, Sebring Village Council, a county commissioner and an individual citizen. Politicians elected in jurisdictions with a minority of the county’s population will hold a majority on the board. So much for “accountability.”

Introducing electoral politics into Mill Creek MetroParks management will be bad for the Park. Compare the deplorable state of Lincoln or South Side parks overseen by elected Youngstown officials with Mill Creek Park overseen by commissioners appointed by the Probate Judge since 1891. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The writer states the group’s principal complaint. They do not want any hunting in Mill Creek Park, because “the deer should be protected.” The writer claims that at 3,400 members, the group is “hardly small.” But it is small — only 2.1% of Mahoning County’s voters. The group believes raising a ruckus during parks meetings and on Vindicator Opinion pages should carry greater weight than reasoned, professional management of Mill Creek Park’s deer herd. These amateurs dispute surveys of deer population, but the survey is consistent with deer frequenting my property. Assume the actual deer population is only 1/10th the survey count. It isn’t, but that still leaves 95 deer living in 2.5 square miles, much of it lake surface, a density more than double the population causing ecological damage.

I stand by my observation. The deer frequenting my property are much smaller than those found in North Central Pennsylvania forests. Given what they are eating of my landscaping, they are starving. The writer notes the number of fawns would be fewer if deer were starving as “nature’s way of achieving balance.” No. Nature’s way of achieving balance is predators, disease and starvation. Humans have eliminated deer’s primary predators: wolves and mountain lions.

If Mill Creek’s deer population continues to grow, many individual deer will succumb to disease, starvation or collisions with automobiles. They will be a risk to humans by hosting ticks infected with lyme disease. They will be more susceptible to infection by disease. They will continue to destroy Mill Creek Park due to overgrazing, with the park losing habitat for other animals and birds. They will graze farther from the Park, damaging more private property.

Mill Creek MetroParks Commission’s approval of a deer hunt to thin the herd is correct from a wildlife management perspective and from a good neighbor perspective. It is in the best interest of the deer herd and the park’s ecosystem.

RICHARD OSTHEIMER

Youngstown