Montana Hunters Asked To Test Animals For Disease
11/02/2009 07:35AM
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Montana wildlife managers are seeking the severed heads of some wildlife taken by hunters and want hunters to draw blood from elk taken in the Yellowstone region as part of two ongoing disease studies.
In southern Montana and near the Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge, elk, deer and moose hunters are asked to donate the heads of their harvested game for a study of chronic wasting disease. The fatal disease has turned up in neighboring Wyoming, Saskatchewan and Alberta but has yet to be detected in Montana.
In south-central Montana around Yellowstone National Park, elk hunters are asked to draw blood from their game to help track brucellosis. That's a reproductive disease that causes pregnant cattle, elk, bison and some other animals to prematurely abort their young.
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