Missouri deer hunters will find a shorter rulebook this autumn. The Missouri Department of Conservation has removed its designated CWD Management Zone, dropped antler-point restrictions in the last 18 counties that still had them, and changed how mandatory chronic wasting disease sampling works.

All three changes are tied to the same problem: a prion disease that has spread far enough across the state that the old geographic boundaries no longer describe where the risk is.

The management zone is gone

MDC has removed the CWD Management Zone outright. The agency’s reasoning is blunt — most Missouri counties have either recorded a case of CWD or sit within 10 miles of a confirmed detection, so drawing a zone around part of the state no longer separates affected areas from unaffected ones. The agency also says removing the zone simplifies the regulations hunters have to read.

One restriction survives the change. The prohibition on placing feed and minerals for deer continues to apply in counties within 10 miles of a CWD-positive detection. Feed sites concentrate animals nose-to-nose, which is precisely how the disease moves between them.

Antler-point restrictions dropped in 18 counties

The antler-point restriction — the rule requiring a buck to have a minimum number of points on one side before it can be taken — has been removed in the final 18 counties where it applied.

The logic runs against the instinct behind the rule. Antler-point restrictions protect yearling bucks so they can reach an older age class. But yearling bucks are also the animals most likely to disperse long distances, and MDC says that dispersal is a mechanism for carrying CWD into new country. Protecting that age class, in the agency’s assessment, works against disease containment.

Mandatory sampling moves to a four-year rotation

The most practical change for hunters is how mandatory sampling now works. Rather than concentrating testing in a fixed zone, MDC has moved mandatory CWD sampling during the opening weekend of the November firearms portion to a four-year county rotation, so that every county in the state is sampled once every four years.

Hunters who take a deer in a designated county on November 14 or 15 must bring the deer, or just the head, to one of MDC’s mandatory sampling stations on the day of harvest. That is a same-day obligation, not a within-a-few-days one, and it applies whether or not you think your animal looks healthy — infected deer can appear normal for a long time.

Which counties are in the rotation this season is the detail worth checking before opening weekend, because the list changes each year by design.

Why the agency is pushing testing this hard

CWD is a fatal neurological disease in deer, elk and related species, caused by misfolded proteins called prions rather than a bacterium or virus. There is no vaccine and no treatment. Prions persist in soil and plant material, which is why the disease is far easier to slow than to eliminate once established.

MDC has published data comparing the population effects of CWD against epizootic hemorrhagic disease, the more familiar seasonal die-off that hunters in the Midwest have long dealt with. EHD kills quickly and visibly, then passes. CWD works slowly and does not pass. The agency also points to buck harvest data from southwest Wisconsin, where counties with high infection rates have seen buck harvest decline while nearby counties with less CWD continued to rise.

What to do before you hunt

Three things are worth confirming. Check whether the county you hunt is in this year’s mandatory sampling rotation. Check whether you are inside the 10-mile radius where feed and mineral placement remains prohibited. And confirm the carcass-handling rules that apply where you hunt and where you take the animal afterwards.

The full rules are in MDC’s Fall Deer and Turkey regulations, and the agency updates its CWD pages during the season.

This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by Leonidas Clark before publication. Regulations change; verify current rules with the relevant agency before you go.