The Department of Conservation has scheduled two public informational meetings in central Missouri to provide an update on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Missouri, explain recent hunting regulation changes related to the disease, and share ways hunters, landowners, wildlife watchers and others can help slow its spread.
The meetings will be Oct. 20 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the California Nutrition Center in California, and Oct. 22 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Runge Nature Center. Conservation Department staff will be available to answer questions and will provide an informational presentation at 6:30 p.m.
Central Missouri became a focus of the Department’s CWD management efforts after a buck harvested in Cole County last year tested positive for the deadly disease. As a result of the first case in mid-Missouri, the Department of Conservation expanded its CWD Management Zone to include Boone, Callaway, Cole, Cooper, Miller, Moniteau, Morgan and Osage counties.
MDC testing efforts previously detected CWD in free-ranging deer in Macon and Adair counties.
The eight central-Missouri counties add to the Department’s CWD Management Zone in northeast Missouri consisting of 11 counties in and around where CWD has been found: Adair, Chariton, Knox, Linn, Macon, Putnam, Randolph, Schuyler, Scotland, Shelby, and Sullivan.
CWD infects only deer and other members of the deer family by causing degeneration of brain tissue, which slowly leads to death. The disease has no vaccine or cure and is 100-percent fatal.
A primary way CWD is spread is through direct deer-to-deer contact. CWD can also be spread through deer having contact with soil that has been contaminated with feces, urine, saliva, or carcass parts from infected deer.
The Conservation Department has also implemented regulation changes, beginning this deer season that focus on slowing the spread of CWD in and around counties where the disease has been found.
The regulation changes remove the antler-point restriction (APR) in the 19 counties of the Department’s CWD Management Zone so young bucks are no longer protected from harvest. Young bucks can potentially spread the disease to new areas as they search for new territories and mates.
The regulation changes also increase the availability of firearms antlerless permits from 1 to 2 in the 19 counties of the CWD Management Zone. These additional harvest opportunities can help prevent undesired population increases in local deer numbers.
"While we do not expect short-term population impacts from the disease, CWD is likely to have serious long-term consequences to the health of Missouri’s deer herd,” explained MDC State Wildlife Veterinarian Kelly Straka. “Therefore, we have and will continue to focus on slowing the spread of the disease among deer in the affected areas, and trying to limit the spread of CWD to new areas of the state."
For more information on Chronic Wasting Disease, visit the MDC website.