Deer Disease Threatens Herds Across the Country

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During Missouri’s rifle-hunting season, state conservation officials in more than two dozen locations spend 12 hours a day removing and testing lymph nodes from the heads of deer carcasses brought in by hunters. They are looking for chronic wasting disease, a deadly and incurable condition on the rise across the country.

Testing can be very inconvenient for hunters, he said.

Colorado labs take about three weeks to get test results and the state recommends hunters don’t eat their venison until they are sure the animal was healthy. That is a long time to wait to process meat. It is also not something that hunters’ fathers and grandfathers had to worry about, so men and women who hunt today need to be taught to take the necessary precautions, Mr. Livingston said. In some places, the testing is paid for by the state, but in others, hunters pay the fees—just over $20—themselves if they choose to get animals tested.

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