LUCILE, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is issuing 1,527 deer hunting tags to Idaho residents as part of an effort to understand the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease, which was found in the state for the first time last month.
The tags will be sold for $10 each on a first-come, first-serve basis at Idaho Fish and Game regional offices only beginning at 10 a.m. Dec. 7. Only state residents may purchase the tags, which will be divided between public and private land hunts.
"All harvested deer taken during the CWD surveillance hunts must be tested for CWD with no exceptions," IDFG officials wrote in a Thursday press release. "Fish and Game will take samples from deer heads at Lewiston and McCall regional offices and at designated check stations near the hunt locations."
The sanctioned deer hunts come after two mule deer bucks killed near Lucile in Idaho County tested positive for the infectious prion disease, which can affect deer, elk, caribou and moose.
Fish and Game intends to test 775 samples from the deer shot in the upcoming hunts.
There will be 35 separate hunt areas, each with a targeted number of chronic wasting disease samples. All hunts will begin Dec. 7 and are currently scheduled to end on Dec. 19, but the end dat could be moved up or extended based on the number of samples collected. The full list of hunts is available here.
CWD is always fatal, and there are no treatments or vaccines. Although there have been no known human cases of chronic wasting disease, people should not eat the meat from an infected animal, health experts say.
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