Over 600 deer sampled for CWD in Ozark County this weekend
West Plains-based MDC fisheries management biologist Nathan Recktenwald takes a sample from a deer killed Saturday by Blaine Taylor, left, at the sampling station at Gainesville High School. While mandatory sampling has ended here, voluntary sampling is encouraged and can be done in Ozark County by contacting McKinzie Taxidermy at 870-321-379 or 870-321-3483.
Deer hunters in Ozark County braved temperatures in the teens Saturday morning as they took to the woods for the opening day of 2018 firearms season. This year’s opening-weekend harvest total was not available at press time, but the Missouri Department of Conservation website posted an unofficial total Tuesday morning for 975 deer harvested in Ozark County the first three days of the season. On opening weekend of the 2017 firearms season, 904 deer were harvested here. Again this year, Ozark County was one of 31 counties where sampling of harvested deer for chronic wasting disease was mandatory on opening weekend. Area sampling stations operated at Gainesville and Dora high schools, and at Mark Twain School in eastern Taney County. A member of the MDC team at one of the sampling stations shared these unofficial weekend totals of deer sampled: 563 at Gainesville, 72 at Dora and 289 at Mark Twain.