White-tailed Deer - Wildlife Management Pro

It was just one white-tailed deer, but people in Missouri are spooked. That’s because in late February a single whitetail buck in central Missouri tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD), a contagious, fatal brain infection. It was the state’s first-ever case, found in one animal among the state’s estimated 1.4 million deer.

The discovery prompted a swift reaction from the wildlife department. In fact, Missouri’s state and federal officials, who had been preparing for this moment for years, quickly quarantined the high-fence shooting ranch in Linn County where the sick whitetail was found. They hoped to quell the outbreak before it spread unchecked in the wild. “We have to be aggressive,” state veterinarian Taylor Woods said. “This all boils down to credibility.” Continue reading CWD Found in Missouri Whitetail

White-tailed deer are not only the number one game animal in North America, they are a big business, too. And unfortunately, not all of that “business” is legal. In Texas, properly licensed individuals can breed and sell whitetail to other breeders or ranches, but there is also an underground trade that is estimated to involve hundreds of thousands of dollars. This deer trade is not only illegal, but it risks the health of the state’s deer herd.

Source: It’s a humid summer evening in central Texas, and a man we’ll call Cal is about to make an illegal purchase. As a result, his anxiety level is high. His palms are damp, his heart is racing and his mouth is dry. The item in this particular transaction isn’t a bale of marijuana or a stolen laptop, or even a crate of bootleg CDs. It’s an 11-point white-tailed buck with highly desirable drop-tine antlers off each main beam. Eyeballing the deer, which has just been darted with a tranquilizer gun, Cal agrees that this buck will earn a Boone & Crockett score of at least 150, as promised. A trophy by most standards, and a bargain for $2,000. Continue reading Illegal Whitetail Deer Trade: Someone’s Watching