When the 2025-26 deer hunting season opened in September, I wrote that a dark cloud was hanging over the proceedings with friends and family members staking out opposing sides on the divisive issue of chronic wasting disease management.
The season ended Jan. 15, and the preliminary overall harvest total of 301,954 represents an increase of about 10 percent over the previous year. Claims about mass extermination of the herd do not appear to be borne out by the number of successful hunters.
While most of the misinformation campaign remains in opposition to the state Department of Conservation’s targeted culling, attempts to answer, explain or rationalize the strategy are met with such distrust and vitriol that it is hard to believe that any effort will be successful.
Still the conservation department has announced that it will not conduct post-season harvests this year. It will instead utilize its resources and time to try to find an audience with people who hold opposing viewpoints to explain the approach in the past and into the future. I am confident the department will base its presentations on evidence rather than emotion.
Among the arguments conservation officials will have to address are claims that they kill tens of thousands of deer through targeted culling. Since culling began 13 years ago, the total removed for testing has been fewer than 30,000 deer. Hunters in those same years harvested about four million deer.
In 2025, targeted culling killed 4,766 deer, the most ever in one year. Now that CWD has been detected in more than 80 counties, that is fewer than 60 deer per county, not thousands or even hundreds.
All of the data is available on the department website for each year since 2013. The annual total goes up each year as more counties are added. The deer taken through targeted culling are not included in the hunter-harvest statistics. Keeping the totals separate protects the comparative integrity of the hunter data.
Yes, the department hires “sharpshooters” who are employees or contractors paid for their time. They use bait to concentrate deer in the targeted areas, and they utilize thermal imaging to allow harvests after dark. Those tactics are illegal during the season, but the culling needs to be as efficient as it is effective.
As with any other hunting, there is a possibility that some deer are shot and not retrieved, but that percentage is going to be near zero compared to the proportion of near misses that happen during the regular season. All of the deer harvested in the post-season targeted culling are counted, tested, processed, and given to the landowner or the Share the Harvest program to feed needy families.
Driftwood Outdoors, a Missouri-based weekly podcast, does a great job of sharing information about hunting and fishing. The recently released Episode 327 includes an interview with conservation department director Jason Sumners. Check out driftwoodoutdoors.com or a podcast provider to get complete answers on chronic wasting disease efforts in the two-hour show.
For those who prefer their information in smaller snippets, clips from its podcasts are shared on Driftwood’s social media channels including Facebook and Instagram. Those posts are subject to an onslaught of comments that require moderators to correct misinformation and bring discussion toward common ground.
Sumners announced the pause in the post-season culling efforts in a letter that began with a personal introduction of growing up in rural Missouri and his childhood fascination with white-tailed deer. The letter concluded with a plea.
“Future generations of Missourians are counting on us to work together to sustain the future of one of our great state’s most important natural resources. Together, we can preserve the health of the herd and the future of hunting; divided, we may lose it.”
Comments are welcome CWDFeedback@mdc.mo.gov.
John Winkelman has been writing about outdoors news and issues in Jefferson County for more than 30 years and was the Associate Editor for Outdoor Guide Magazine. If you have story ideas for the Leader outdoor news page, e-mail ogmjohnw@aol.com, and you can find more outdoor news and updates at johnjwink.com.