The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) confirmed earlier this week that two free-ranging whitetail deer have tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). Both deer came from Macon County and were a result of more than 1,000 tissue samples tested by officials during the 2011 firearm season.

In a recent interview with Bob Simmons of the Lincoln County Journal, MDC deer biologist Jason Sumners stated, “We will be working with local landowners to harvest additional deer for tissue sampling. This is a first step and one of our best hopes for containing, and perhaps even eliminating, what we believe to be a recent localized event.”

The MDC has released an initial plan, which calls for the harvest of more deer from the immediate area of the two positively tested deer.

The tissue samplings were conducted after several captive deer tested positive for the disease in Linn and Macon Counties in both 2010 and 2011. The two free-ranging deer that tested positive were both mature bucks, and lived within two miles of the Macon County Preserve where the first captive whitetails tested positive in the state.