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      Deer hunters have an extra responsibility this hunting season

      The Missouri Department of Conservation is asking that all deer hunters remain vigilant of unhealthy deer.

      On Saturday, Regional Resource Office staff set up outside of the Nunan Meat Market to collect chronic waste disease samples from harvested deer. They test about 1,500 deer in containment zones each year.

      The zone areas include: Adair, Chariton, Randolph, Sullivan and Macon Counties. Program specialists are asking hunters to look for symptoms of the disease in all harvested deer.

      â??CWD has a pretty long incubation period. It can take up to a couple years for a deer to actually show symptoms, so they might have the disease and test positive for it even though they look seemingly healthy. Once a deer does start showing symptoms, they often display changes in behavior. It's a neurological disease that causes brain degeneration, so there are changes in behavior, abnormal behavior, excessive salivation, tremors and often at the end stages of the diseases, they become extremely skinny and emaciated,â?? says Specialist Jasmine Batten.

      Deer tested positive for the disease have not been known to spread the disease to humans. For more information on deer sampling, visit: www.mdc.mo.gov www.cwd-info.org or www.knowcwd.com.