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Chronic Wasting Disease found in deer in Cole County, outside containment zone

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The Missouri Department of Conservation is working to control Chronic Wasting Disease, a degenerative brain disease that is infecting mid-Missouri’s deer population.

The state announced on Tuesday 11 new cases of Chronic Wasting Disease in the deer population, including one case found in the Cole County town of Centertown, Missouri. Every previous case of Chronic Wasting Disease has occurred in either Macon, Linn or Adair counties.

Chronic Wasting Disease only infects deer. It is transmitted primarily through deer-to-deer contact but also can be transmitted through environmental agents. In all reported cases of Chronic Wasting Disease, it has a 100 percent fatality. There is no vaccine or cure for the disease.

The conservation department is actively working to contain Chronic Wasting Disease and to understand how it works. It is currently running 330 tissue sample tests, the results of which will be available at the end of March.

Missouri Department of Conservation deer biologist Jason Sumners said the department is trying to figure out the origin of the new case of Chronic Wasting Disease in Cole County, at least 80 miles from the department’s containment zone.

“We don’t have anything to directly point to at this point as to the origins of this outbreak,” Sumners said. “But we will be collecting a bunch of additional samples in the upcoming fall hunting season and trying to figure out at least what the distribution prevalence is in and around the new occurrence in Cole County.”

However, some people in Missouri’s lucrative deer hunting industry are skeptical of the benefits of the state’s testing. One of the state’s methods of acquiring tissue samples for testing and for reducing the threat of Chronic Wasting Disease is what it calls “targeted culling,” or selective slaughtering of mid-Missouri deer.

Matt Shoemaker owns and operates Macon County Outfitters, an outfitter that sponsors deer hunting trips for a mostly out-of-state clientele. He says that while Chronic Wasting Disease has yet to directly affect his business, he does feel that the state is hurting him by killing deer.

“I basically think the state is blowing it way out of proportion,” Shoemaker said. “] really don’t approve of how they are going about all this excess testing.”

The state said that while Chronic Wasting Disease will have a nominal short-term effect on the deer population, it is concerned that the disease will ultimately ruin the deer population in Missouri. Other states, including Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois, have reported severe cases of Chronic Wasting Disease within the past four years.