Mandatory Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) sampling is happening opening weekend of firearms portion of deer season Nov. 12-13. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) will have several sampling stations within Missouri made available for hunters.
If a hunter harvests a deer from select counties in the CWD Management Zone during the opening weekend of deer season, they must take your deer — or just the head — on the day of harvest to one of the following CWD sampling stations.
Perry County has two sampling stations: the Perryville MDC Forestry Office at 2206 W. St. Joseph St. and Heartland Social Club on Highway A in Uniontown.
CWD is a deadly, infectious disease in deer and other members of the deer family that eventually kills all animals it infects. The disease has been found in Missouri and is slowly spreading. MDC is working with conservation partners to find cases of CWD and limit its spread.
Mandatory sampling dramatically increases the number of tissue samples MDC can collect in a brief period of time. The increased number of samples gives MDC scientists a much better understanding of the distribution and prevalence of the disease — where it is and how many deer may have it. It can also help find new cases in new areas.
Opening weekend of the firearms deer season is the most popular two hunting days for most deer hunters. Hunters take about a third of our state’s total annual deer harvest during those two days. Focusing on this key weekend gives MDC the best opportunity to collect the most tissue samples during a very concentrated time period.