ND & MN deer gun seasons ready to open

With another deer hunting season ready to open today the North Dakota Game and Fish department is on the lookout for chronic wasting disease. The state made 64,200 licenses available this fall – an increase of 8,000 over last year.

This year self-sampling kits will be available for hunters who wish to have their deer tested but are unable to drop the head at a collection site. The do-it-yourself kit allows hunters to remove the lymph nodes and ship them to the Department’s wildlife health lab for testing.

Game and Fish Outreach Biologist Jim Job says last year a CWD case was discovered south of Grand Forks and east of the Red River.  “In a lot of our units we haven’t come close to collecting enough samples for even an 80% confidence that CWD is not in the unit.  We just know it hasn’t been detected in these units.”

North Dakota’s deer gun season opens Friday, Nov. 4 at 12 noon Central time.

Minnesota hunters hit the fields on Saturday.