By AP/KWMU
Springfield, MO – The Missouri Department of Conservation will again ask hunters to help them during this year's deer season look for chronic wasting disease.
The disease affects a deer's brain and eventually kills it; so far no cases have been found in Missouri.
Last year, officials had to remove the heads of deer to test for the disease. But this year a more advance procedure will allow just lymph glands to be analyzed, which won't require decapitation.
However, the incision in a deer's neck needed to remove the glands might affect mounting a head.
According to the Department of Conservation, the disease was first detected in 1967 in deer within the northeast portion of Colorado.
It has been found among free-ranging deer in a very limited number of locations in the Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin.