Deer forage at Oglebay Park in Wheeling. (File Photo)

WHEELING — A hearing scheduled for today on a petition to prevent Oglebay Park’s Urban Deer Hunt has been continued to a later date, according to an attorney representing Oglebay.

A new date for that hearing has not yet been decided.

Attorneys representing Oglebay also have filed a motion to dismiss the suit filed by Toriseva Law on behalf of 14 locals, according to James C. Gardill, managing member of Phillips, Gardill, Kaiser and Altmeyer, the firm representing Oglebay in the hearing.

Gardill said he and his fellow attorneys requested the continuance. The two sides were scheduled to appear before Brooke County Circuit Court Judge Jason Cuomo on the matter.

Attorney Teresa Toriseva filed the petition for an injunction to stop the deer culling, claiming Oglebay had no scientific basis for its estimate of overpopulation of deer at the park.

Oglebay said the culling was scheduled to help control the deer population that had grown out of hand at the park.

The petition also claimed Oglebay had made no attempts to stop the reason that the deer are tame and have marketed and benefited from people hand-feeding the deer. The petition also claims Oglebay has “consistently and repeatedly lied” about the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources’ involvement in providing an estimate of the amount of deer at the park and that the WVDNR has not authorized the November culling.

In its motion to dismiss, Oglebay claims that the plaintiffs failed to include several “indispensable parties” in the suit, Gardill confirmed. Those parties are the state DNR, the City of Wheeling, the Oglebay Foundation Properties, Inc. and Parks System Trust Fund.

The motion to dismiss contends that Oglebay Park and Oglebay Park Foundation Inc. are not the proper parties in the case.