The Missouri Department of Conservation has made changes to methods of preventing the spread of chronic wasting disease, a deadly pathogen that has infected about 1%, or nearly 1.5 million, of Missouri’s white-tailed deer. But hunters are frustrated with the changes and some hunters’ decisions could affect meat processors and taxidermists.
Inside a Harrisburg, Missouri meat processing facility, country music plays in the background as Ryan Freman organizes vacuum sealed meat and his dad, Trey, slices bacon. Another machine injects flavoring into the meat before it’s packaged to be given back to the hunters and farmers who bring it in.
This facility also offers CWD testing, which has become increasingly controversial in the Missouri hunting community in recent years. Freman said testing for CWD is a way for his family to do their part in monitoring the disease.
“We like working with conservationists because it helps to know how much deer are actually testing positive," he said.
While Freman knows there are hunters who are frustrated with the mere idea of testing, he said it hasn’t affected their business.
“We see both sides of it. I wouldn’t say it’s affecting us, but there is more people that don't want to test versus that do test," Freman said.
This year, the Missouri Department of Conservation has changed its system for detecting and preventing the spread of CWD. In previous years, all deer collected in counties where CWD had been detected – or within a small radius of a positive CWD case – had to be tested. But that didn’t stop CWD from spreading across the state. So one-fourth of Missouri counties will now test every year – but that means each county is only tested once in a four-year span.
Mindy Paulek is a biologist in Colorado who’s studied whether CWD can pass between species. She said voluntary CWD testing is important for biologists to give a fuller picture of what the disease is doing currently, and how it has spread over time.
“It gives a better statistic or more knowledge of how that, how much that disease is persisting in that area and where," she said. "And so it gives the biologist a better idea to try to better manage it.”
Allen Moris has been hunting in Missouri for four decades. He called CWD a fear mongering tactic, and refuses to test his deer.
“If you test, I will never do business with you ever, for anything. If I see one of those signs there, you know, sticking out front, the CWD testing here, I will never, ever," Moris said. “Those signs are anti-hunting, anti-conservation and anti-land owner.”
The CWD testing signs are orange, with bold black letters saying “CWD Sampling Here,” at least one MDC logo, and a large arrow pointing towards the facility.
Tony Kalna is a Missouri hunter who runs the Missouri Deer Hunter Facebook page. He knows CWD is real, and could become a problem, but said Missouri is overreacting.
“I think the majority of people think this whole thing is just a waste of money and time by the department,” he said.
Previously, the MDC would do targeted culling, where the deer population in CWD hot zones would be reduced by a variety of means, including some methods illegal for hunters. Now, it is providing an increased number of free deer tags to landowners with 20 acres or more in CWD positive areas. Each tag allows the killing of one deer. The MDC has removed antler-point restrictions, giving hunters the ability to kill younger, healthy deer, which decreases their ability to reproduce.
But biologists like Paulek say just reducing the population doesn’t solve the problem.
With some hunters planning on skipping CWD testing, or hunting in areas where it’s not mandated, and with the state moving to systematic - but not necessarily targeted – testing, less information is being generated. That could make it harder to manage a disease that’s already in nearly every Missouri county and can spread via water, soil or animal-to-animal contact.
