Conservation Department Expands Chronic Wasting Disease Management Zone

The Missouri Department of Conservation is expanding its Chronic Wasting Disease Management Zone to include Laclede, Camden, Pulaski, and McDonald counties.

The department is also reinstating mandatory Chronic Wasting Disease sampling for the first weekend of November firearms deer hunting season.

The Missouri Conservation Commission approved the changes last Friday.

Out of 15,300 deer tested last year, there were 44 new cases of Chronic Wasting Disease. One of those cases was in Pulaski County, where there had not been a case before. The department recommended Camden and Laclede counties be added to the Management Zone because of that case.

The department added McDonald County because a deer with CWD was found ten miles over the border with Arkansas.

The commission also reinstated mandatory sampling after waiving the requirement during COVID-19. The testing affects any hunter who takes a deer in a county in the Management Zone on opening weekend. They must take their harvested deer or its head to one of MDC’s mandatory CWD sampling stations.

The department has removed the antler-point restriction for the upcoming deer season in Camden and Pulaski counties.

Chronic Wasting Disease is an always fatal, contagious, neurological disease affecting deer species, elk, and moose.