MDC needs help from deer hunters

[Phil Lilley]

MDC needs help from deer hunters for CWD testing firearms opening weekend - Nov. 12 and 13

Hunters harvesting deer during opening firearms weekend in 29 counties in northeast, central, and east-central Missouri must have deer tested for chronic wasting disease.

 

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) needs help from deer hunters to find and limit the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD), a deadly illness for deer.

MDC reminds deer hunters that the Wildlife Code of Missouri requires hunters who harvest deer during the opening weekend of the fall firearms deer season -- Nov. 12 and 13 -- in any of the 29 counties of the Department’s CWD Management Zone to present their deer for CWD tissue-sample collection on the day of harvest. Hunters must take their harvested deer to one of 75 MDC CWD sampling locations throughout the 29 counties. Sampling locations will be open Saturday and Sunday from 7:30 a.m. until at least 8 p.m.

The 29 counties of the CWD Management Zone are: Adair, Boone, Callaway, Carroll, Chariton, Cole, Cooper, Crawford, Franklin, Gasconade, Jefferson, Knox, Linn, Livingston, Macon, Miller, Moniteau, Morgan, Osage, Putnam, Randolph, St. Charles, St. Louis, Schuyler, Scotland, Shelby, Sullivan, Warren, and Washington.

Hunters can also present just the deer head with about six inches of neck attached. Deer must be presented by the hunter who harvested the animal. 

Hunters presenting bucks bound for taxidermy should inform MDC staff of that. While staff will not collect tissue samples, they will still will complete paperwork and inform hunters about participating taxidermists taking CWD tissue samples.

While testing is mandatory during firearms opening weekend, MDC staff will be available to remove tissue samples from deer harvested in the CWD Management Zone throughout the season. Hunters can contact their regional Conservation Department office for voluntary testing information: Central Regional Office in Columbia at 573-815-7900, Northeast Regional Office in Kirksville at 660-785-2420, and St. Louis Regional Office in St. Charles at 636-441-4554.

TIME-SAVING TIPS FOR HUNTERS

Hunters can help reduce their wait times at a CWD sampling location by:

• Telechecking their deer before going to a sampling location,
• Having their completed permit information ready,
• Being prepared to locate their harvest location on a map,
• Positioning their deer in the vehicle so the head and neck are easily accessible for staff to take tissue samples, or
• Having the detached head with about 6 inches of neck attached bagged and ready.

For more information on CWD in Missouri and CWD testing locations, visit mdc.mo.gov/CWD.

---

MEDIA COVERAGE

Media outlets can coordinate with MDC Media Staff on coverage of CWD mandatory sampling activities taking place in northeast, central, and east-central Missouri on Nov. 12 and 13. For the St. Louis area, contact MDC Media Specialist Dan Zarlenga at 636-300-1953 ext. 4412 or Dan.Zarlenga@mdc.mo.gov. For Central and Northeast Missouri, contact MDC Media Specialist Robert Hemmelgarn at 573-815-7900 ext. 2919, or Robert.Hemmelgarn@mdc.mo.gov.

[fishinwrench]

If this is so important then why is it only mandatory during the firearms season?   

Inquiring minds.....

[Johnsfolly]

32 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

If this is so important then why is it only mandatory during the firearms season?

This is when most of the deer are harvested. So they would have the greatest amount of potential samples and likely to be over all of the counties within the CWD containment zones. Also because of focusing on the small window like the opening weekend, they don't have to have staffing at all locations to cover days when few if any deer would be brought in for sampling. After that time its on a volunteer basis for the hunter to contact the agents to set up the sampling.

[fishinwrench]

If a deer tests positive then what will they do ?  

[ciRe]

High school friend is a biologist that works at Busch and told me that if it will test positive they will want to know exact spot to help make sure it won't spread. Basically kill all the deer around the property you hunt. 

 

Sounds like a great idea!

 

that being said who ever uses the app (like myself) I would turn off location services for it!

[fishinwrench]

Pardon me for saying so, but they are always coming up with these THINGS that are impossible to control....but yet require vast amounts of study and attempts.   And they don't stop propagandizing it until they come up with a NEW THING to convince everyone they should worry about it.  Then the OLD THING just goes away, without any action ever being taken.

Reminds me of a group that exists only because they excel at creating perfect little "milk the goose" projects for themselves.

"Ok, We will pay you to milk the geese, because you've convinced enough people that the geese should be milked,  but let's postpone the sampling of potentially toxic dandelion's until at least 2018". 

I know it frustrates alot of you that you can't shoot feral hogs.... but dammit there are people on the payroll that need stuff like "Trapping Hogs" to keep them out of the bars.  So it's important for you to believe how utterly intelligent those critters are, and that you need to leave the hog killing to the REAL professionals.  ?

Now a person capable of independent thought knows that if we shoot every feral hog we see, then pretty soon we won't see them anymore.   Problem solved.  But No, we allow the hog biologists to convince us otherwise, so we can pay to have hogs eradicated and miss out on all the fun that could be had hunting hogs. 

[MOPanfisher]

FW, what sort of things have been important and then "gone away", and nobody cares any more.  I suspect that the things you will mention have been worked and are still being worked, just not in the spotlight anymore.  For years hunters were asked to kill every feral pig they saw, period, put it on the ground.  How well has that worked toward eradication.  having been around both feral and domestic hogs, I will say that hog are certainly not stupid, nor are they the paragon of intelligent thought some give them credit for.  They will however become very wary and spooked easily if pressured.  In the county where I work, there is no comparison to the number of pigs trapped and the number shot by hunters.  The only areas I know of where feral hogs have been eradicated or nearly so are ones where a combination of trapping, radio collaring, and aerial shooting have been used.  However some of those techniques don't work well everywhere, especially aerial shooting, lots of trees, ravines, lots of accesses by public, and dense brush make that tough, more open country and the aerial gunners are very effective.

[fishinwrench]

Oh I know.  I wasn't inviting an argument about any of it, but every once in awhile I have to vent what, to me, is just common sense.   

Fairly recently there has been didymo, zebra mussels, Asian carp, ect.  And before that there was always SOMETHING.   And all those something's are still with us in the same degree, they've just been accepted as not the horrific threat that they were initially touted to be.   

It's just something to keep a group of people busy for awhile, and those people all got paid well.    Nothing was accomplished....and WE footed the bill for it.    That's all.  

The things that actually matter, and that they COULD do something about, always gets tabled.  It's frustrating to sit back and watch it, and just keep our mouths shut.

[MOPanfisher]

I don't really disagree with that too much.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Other than the fact that because the MDC immediately set forth a plan to combat these issues kept it at a bare minimum and not a large catastrophe. And their ongoing work keeps it at a minimum.