Northwest Arkansas hunters asked to help harvest collared deer

JASPER — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is wrapping up a four-year population study concerning the effects of chronic wasting disease and is asking hunters for their help recovering the deer tagged for the project.

During the last four years, researchers from the University of Georgia have trapped adult male and female deer and their fawns in Newton and Searcy counties and tracked their movements, reproduction and causes of mortality using GPS-telemetry collars. Each deer was tested with a live test for CWD, collared and released.

“Now that the project is coming to an end, this is a great opportunity for hunters to help in a citizen science capacity, harvesting the monitored deer that are left,” Dr. Jenn Ballard, state wildlife veterinarian with the AGFC, said. “We will retest each of them to gather more information and help us get the most out of this research.”

Cory Gray, chief of the AGFC’s Research Division, says about 38 deer remain from the study and they will be removed soon, but hunters can help the AGFC’s work by shooting these deer during the remainder of the season. Most of the deer were outfitted with easily visible GPS-telemetry collars, but some were marked with ear tags. Any hunter seeing deer with collars or ear tags is encouraged to harvest them.

“Hunters have been able to harvest these research deer throughout the study to make sure we understand how harvest rates influence deer populations in the real world,” Gray said. “This announcement is more of an encouragement to lend a hand in the research by harvesting these final deer and calling us to get the samples needed to wrap up the project.”

It is important for the hunters to report the harvest of these marked deer for researchers to gather crucial data. They can call the phone number on the collars or contact the researchers through the AGFC Radio Room at 833-356-0824. The AGFC will hold the deer in cold storage until CWD tests are complete. Hunters will be notified of any CWD-positive deer, and the animal will be disposed of properly. Any deer that have no CWD detected will be ground and the meat returned to the hunter.  In return for hunters’ help, the AGFC will pay the processing fees of any marked deer turned in.

“Once the final youth hunt is finished on Jan. 5, the research team will work with USDA APHIS Wildlife Services, who will begin targeted removal of the research deer,” Gray said. “All deer harvested by Wildlife Services that come back with no CWD detected will be ground and given to Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry. We hope to wrap up removal of all research deer by no later than April.”

The CWD population impact study is the largest research project the AGFC is involved with and has spanned four years of telemetry work and maintenance to observe possible effects of the disease on the deer population at a local level in Arkansas.

Another year remains in the project, analyzing and summarizing various aspects of the data collected during the last four years. The AGFC is working with several partners on the four-year project, including the University of Georgia-Athens, Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, Colorado State University, the National Park Service, the CWD Alliance and the USDA Forest Service. The Commission is expected to hear an update and preliminary report on the data-collection phase of the project at its February meeting.

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