(WWJ) -- Firearm deer season begins Monday in Michigan and officials with the Department of Natural Resources are asking for some help from hunters as they begin a new process of tracking chronic waste disease.
The DNR is asking anyone who harvests a deer this fall to bring the full deer carcass or deer head to a DNR check station for free CWD testing.
CWD is a contagious, neurological disease that affects deer, elk and moose, causing a degeneration of the brain, resulting in emaciation (abnormally thin), abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death, according to the DNR’s website.
Deer baiting and feeding is prohibited in the entire Lower Peninsula and in most of the U.P., to help prevent the spread of the disease, which is transmitted through direct animal-to-animal contact or by contact with saliva or other infected parts of the animal.
The DNR is beginning a five-year process of strategic, focused surveillance of the disease by testing deer heads around the state.
This year, testing will occur mainly in the southernmost three tiers of Michigan counties, before the process is expanded to the remainder of the state over the next four years, when the DNR will systematically sample deer to determine if CWD is present in other areas where it has not yet been identified.
DNR officials say those who harvest deer in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Monroe, Allegan, Barry, Branch, Calhoun, Eaton, Gratiot, southern Isabella, Hillsdale, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lenawee or St. Joseph Counties can bring their deer head to a DNR check station. That also applies to deer harvested in the core CWD surveillance areas in the U.P.
Hunters will be required to provide check stations with information about the county, township, range and section where the deer was harvested. The deer head should also be removed, with 2-3 inches of neck remaining, the DNR said.
Antlers can be removed, but must be brought to the station for measurements.
More information on the disease and testing program can be found on the DNR’s website. The DNR says COVID-19 safety protocols will be in place at check stations.
Related
DNR biologist Chad Stewart told WWJ about 500,000 hunters are expected to head out in Michigan this season, which ends on Nov. 30.
He also says it could be trickier for some hunters this fall, due to a nationwide ammo shortage.
Stewart says drivers should be more alert on the roads as firearm season begins.
“Typically, deer are most active from sunset to sunrise and then kind of lay low a lot more during the day,” Stewart said. “During the breeding season, they are active throughout the day, so people see them a lot more, there’s a lot more activity involved. It’s also when we start to see a lot more deer-vehicle collisions, because more deer are on the move.”
Related
