YOUNGSTOWN — Eight more deer were killed by hunters during the last four weeks in the Mill Creek MetroParks, marking the end of the hunting and deer removals for this season, and bringing the total killed to 236 since the season began Sept. 29, according to data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

The MetroParks removed 204 deer in the first year of its deer removal program one year ago.

The report states that no deer were killed the final week of the hunting season ending Jan. 25, six were killed the week ending Jan. 18, one was killed the week ending Jan. 11 and one was killed the week ending Jan. 4.

All eight of the deer killed in the past four weeks were taken with a crossbow. The hunters were selected through the ODNR hunting lottery system.

Hunting with firearms lasted five weeks — from late November to late December. The firearm hunts accounted for 38 deer killed this season, according to earlier data.

The firearm hunts were allowed at the following parks on Saturdays and Sundays: Collier Preserve, Mill Creek Wildlife Sanctuary, Springfield Forest, Hawkins Marsh, Vickers Nature Preserve and Sawmill Creek Preserve, Nick Derico, Mill Creek MetroParks natural resources manager, has said.

He will provide a year-end summary of the results for this season in the coming weeks. They will include the totals from hunting and the removals by U.S. Department of Agriculture sharpshooters in Mill Creek Park.

Derico said it will “include the final corrected harvest numbers and also assign the harvests to each specific property.”

Last year’s report indicated that the largest number of deer removed from nine MetroParks properties during the first year of removals was 40 from Hitchcock Woods in Boardman.

The report also detailed several incidents that required intervention by the MetroParks Police Department, Ohio Division of Wildlife and the Boardman Police Department, such as a hunter trespassing onto neighboring property while hunting at the Mill Creek Wildlife Sanctuary in Beaver Township, resulting in the hunter being cited.

This year, sharpshooters removed 75 of the 236 deer killed. The removals took place in Mill Creek Park in areas where traditional hunting “cannot easily be utilized as a deer management tool, such as Mill Creek proper,” according to a letter from Geoff Westerfield, ODNR assistant wildlife supervisor, when he approved the removal of 75 deer by sharpshooters last fall.

Officials have said that traditional hunting is not used in Mill Creek Park because of the more urban and suburban nature of that park compared to parks in areas that are less populated.

The 75 deer were going to come from an area between U.S. Route 224 in Boardman and Midlothian Boulevard, Derico had said.

When the MetroParks asked for permission from ODNR in September 2024 to remove 75 deer with sharpshooters, it provided an “Assessment of Forest Regeneration in Mill Creek Park, Huntington Woods and Hitchcock Woods” dated June 2024 that it said showed “slight improvement (in vegetation) as compared to 2023” before the first year of deer removals.

The MetroParks has indicated that a key reason for reducing the number of deer in the MetroParks is to restore the vegetation. The assessment notes that white-tailed deer feed on a “wide range of woody and herbaceous plant growth” and they can “negatively influence forest regeneration when populations exceed ecological carrying capacity.”