The Missouri Department of Conservation is warning property owners it is illegal to feed deer in Chronic Wasting Disease zones. Twelve new counties — including Texas — were added to the list this year.
“So, the prohibition on placing feed and minerals for deer — the objective is to keep our deer population healthy,” said Jason Isabelle, cervid program supervisor with the Missouri Department of Conservation. “CWD is a disease in our deer herd that certainly threatens the health of our deer herd, threatens our hunting culture.”
He said the disease spreads whenever deer come in close contact with each other.
“Whenever you have a feed site or a mineral site that’s placed for deer, of course you’re attracting deer to that location. They are artificially congregated there. They’re coming into very close contact with one another,” Isabelle said. “So, if a deer happens to have Chronic Wasting Disease, it would be a way that that disease could spread more quickly through the local deer population.”
Anyone caught feeding deer in a Chronic Wasting Disease zone can be fined up to $250.
Twelve new counties were added to Missouri’s CWD zone this year — Callaway, Cape Girardeau, Daviess, Harrison, Henry, Marion, Miller, Moniteau, Morgan, Ralls, St. Louis and Texas — totaling 83 counties in every region of the state. The percentage of Missouri’s deer population infected with CWD is very small, less than 1%.
So mo has 116 counties and 83 counties had less than 1% cwd in them. Mmm never had this untill there was a point restriction
It’s an excuse for the MDC to cull a large percentage of the herd. And they are culling them right after they’ve been bred and before they drop their fawns by doing so from January thru March. Yet they still only allow two bucks per season instead of 3 like they used to with 2 from bow season and one from rifle. They just want more stupid doe seasons.