Hunters in selected permit areas
asked to register deer promptly
Posted 11/7/02

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is asking firearms deer hunters who harvest an adult deer in permit area 410 (Otter Tail County area) to register it as soon as possible to so that good samples could be obtained for Chronic Wasting Disease tests planned for those areas.

DNR staff will be at selected registration stations until the target number of samples is obtained at each station. The DNR will sample deer older than one year and only those taken in specific target areas. Samples will not be taken from every deer registered at these locations.

The DNR plans to test between 5,000 and 6,000 hunter-harvested deer during the 2002 firearms deer season, which begins Nov. 9. The tests will be conducted in cooperation with the Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa, the 1854 Authority, students in the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, and other volunteers. This is part of an on-going effort to find out if CWD is present in the wild deer herd.

"Depending on the weather, there is a relatively short time before the sample needs to be extracted or the head needs to be preserved on ice," said Dr. Chris DePerno, deer research biologist for the DNR Division of Wildlife. "If hunters wait too long before registering their deer and submitting it for sampling, the sample could be unusable."

Selected registration stations will be staffed for CWD sampling starting at noon on Saturday, Nov. 9, the start of Minnesota's firearms deer season. As needed, stations will be staffed again on Sunday, Nov. 10 starting at 9 a.m. Staff will continue to collect samples at selected registration stations until the stations quota (60 samples, 30 male and 30 female) is met.

Stations in southeast Minnesota will be staffed again starting at noon on Nov. 23 for the start of the Zone 3B season. Selected registration stations in Zone 3B will also be staffed on Nov. 24 starting at 9 a.m.

In addition to permit area 410, samples will be collected in permit areas: 154, 175, 181/199, 221, 247, 227, 284, 341, 342, 345, 346, 415, 417, 427 and 451.

Hunters who register their deer at a station where samples are being collected may be asked several questions about where the deer was harvested. Taking a sample requires removing the head from the carcass. Submission for sampling is voluntary.

"The success of this effort will depend on getting good information from hunters," DePerno said. "We're counting on their ability to tell us exactly where they harvested their deer. It's in everyone's best interest that this effort is successful."

Hunters who submit their deer for sampling will receive notification of the test results by mail.

Hunters who are not asked to submit their deer to the DNR for testing may have their deer tested for a fee at the University of Minnesota. Selected veterinarians across the state have agreed to extract samples and send them to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Lab for testing. A full list of participating veterinarians will be available on the DNR website at www.dnr.state.mn.us

State law allows the head of a deer to be removed once the deer is registered and a possession tag has been issued. If the site and possession tags are attached to the deer's head, they will be removed when the CWD sample is taken and returned to the hunter. The tags, along with the hunter's license, should remain with the carcass or processed meat as long as any portion of the deer is in possession. Full details are available on page 50 of the 2002 Hunting Regulations Handbook.

This fall's sampling of hunter-harvested deer is designed to detect CWD with 95 percent confidence if just 1 percent of the deer herd in a targeted area is infected with the disease. However, large-scale testing will not provide immediate answers.

"Even if we don't find it this year, we won't be able to say that CWD isn't out there somewhere," said Mike DonCarlos, research manager for the DNR Division of Wildlife. "This is just the beginning of an effort that will require long-term vigilance."

Permit areas selected for hunter-harvested testing were chosen based on their geographic location in the state and several other factors, including concentrations of deer and elk farms and proximity to CWD infected states.