Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, a disease of the nervous system in deer and elk that results in brain lesions and death has been detected in five northwest Arkansas counties. In response, the Game and Fish Commission has established a 10-county Management Zone to try and keep it from spreading. 

Wildlife Division Chief Brad Carner updated an audience of farmers and ranchers at Farm Bureau’s Officers and Leaders conference on steps the commission is taking to manage the disease. Included is a proposal to increase the bag limit from four to five deer and remove the three-point rule for bucks in Management Zones 1 and 2. Additional proposed regulations are available on the commission’s website.

“We know it’s not possible to try to eradicate it but try to manage it,” Carner said. “So our commission has enacted some regulations for this upcoming season that are designed to minimize that spread.

“Within those 10 counties feeding of wildlife is prohibited, but baiting with intent to hunt over that bait is allowed from September through December to allow hunters to harvest more deer and reduce deer densities which will help slow the spread of the disease as well. We recognize that baiting deer is an important management tool to increase the harvest within an area so that is an important thing we want hunters to continue to do to make sure that we have an adequate, maintain an adequate deer harvest, especially within that CWD management zone.

“We’ll ask hunters to do different things now in that area. If they’re going to transport a carcass out of that area we’re asking them to debone the animal and only bring deboned meat out of that to reduce the risk of introducing the disease into other parts of the state. And so deer hunting is going to be different in that area. We still encourage the hunters to get out there. We need their help to manage the disease.

“Two important points is that there’s no known evidence to suggest that the disease is transmissible to humans or to cattle,” Carner stressed. “As we move forward with our education efforts and communication efforts is to try to repeatedly get that information out to the public that they should not have any human health concerns or concerns about being transmissible to cattle.”

Some corn growers package and sell part of their crop to hunters or retail outlets as bait. Carner encouraged growers to continue to package and sell part of their crop for the purpose of “baiting” and hopefully harvesting more deer.

For information on how to report a sick or dead deer, for the latest updates on CWD testing results and to learn more about revised hunting regulations within the affected area, visit the Game and Fish website at agfc.com.