JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri conservation officials are encouraging hunters this month to help monitor free-ranging deer for chronic wasting disease.
A captive deer in northern-central Missouri's Macon County tested positive earlier this month for the fatal neurological disease. The animal was kept on property owned by a company that also owns a hunting preserve in nearby Linn County where a deer was diagnosed with chronic wasting disease in February 2010.
Youth firearms deer season takes place this weekend. General firearms season runs Nov. 12-22. The Conservation Department is asking hunters in Linn, Macon, Adair, Chariton ((SHAIR'-uh-tuhn), Randolph and Sullivan counties to take any deer they kill on weekends to special collection points so that tissue samples can be taken and tested for chronic wasting disease.