The Wyoming Game and Fish Department will host trainings throughout the Bighorn Basin to teach hunters how to collect samples from mule deer for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) testing.
The Bighorn Basin is an area of high prevalence of CWD, which is a contagious brain disease affecting, deer, elk and moose that usually leads to death.
Sara DiRienzo, the departments public information officer, said there are six hunting areas in the Bighorn Basin where the department needs at least 200 samples.
"They are focusing on these areas to monitor the disease and then next season they'll focus on some more," she said. "The issue is with we can't focus on the entire state because our lab doesn't have that capacity do that many samples each season."
The hunting areas are 105, 106, 109, 121, 122 and 123. She said regions throughout the state are taking their own approach and the Big Horn Basin is only area providing workshops.
"One way we to do this is to empower hunters to take their own samples when they can," said DiRienzo. "So these workshops will teach hunters how to take their own CWD samples in the field and then they can drop those off at Game and Gish check stations."
The trainings are being held in Cody, Powell and Lovell.
Have a question about this story? Contact the reporter, Kamila Kudelska, at kkudelsk@uwyo.edu.
