JOLIET, Mont. — As darkness closed in, one hunter after another stopped at this newly opened game check station, deer carcasses loaded in the beds of their pickups.
They had been given licenses for a special hunt, and others would follow. Jessica Goosmann, a wildlife technician with Montana’s Fish, Wildlife & Parks Department, stepped outside to greet them, reaching for the neck of each freshly killed deer to cut an incision and remove a lymph node for testing.
On the edge of this south-central Montana village, where deer hunting is a way of life, the game check station has become the front line of the state’s efforts to stop the spread of a deadly infection known as chronic wasting disease.
It has ravaged deer herds throughout the United States and Canada and forced the killing of thousands of infected animals in 24 states and three Canadian provinces. It has also been found in Norway and South Korea. With the disease widespread in Wyoming, the Dakotas and the province of Alberta, Montana officials had been bracing for its emergence.
So in November, when biologists discovered it in six deer in this part of Montana and in another near the Canadian border, officials began setting up special hunts and stations for testing.
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I hunted Deer for over 25 years, than lazy hunters started baiting, before long the deer became more of a night feeder.
ReplyDeleteThey ate the bait at night and sleep all day, no longer moving about in the daylight hours looking for food.
Because of many deer eating at the bait piles the deer swallowed each other saliva, spreading disease.
When hunter were told that the Deer now had Brain worms, Cronic Wasting Disease, and TB, I new it was time to quit. I don't want to be exposed to this crap.
Thanks all lazy useless hunters, good job!
Your explanation is completely logical. All the tax dollars wasted to avoid these types of situations because the departments responsible for regulating don't know JACK about what they are regulating. They do the same thing to the Watermen. Stupid Annapolis politicians and beurocrats think that from behind their desk they know better than anyone else. That's why the regulations are overbearing, and still don't achieve the desired results.
DeleteAsk a liberal though and they would say, "If we don't regulate, the deer will be hunted to extinction".