Salt licks and feeding deer is now prohibited year round in Missouri

To slow the spread of chronic wasting disease, salt licks, mineral licks and feeding of deer is prohibited year round in Missouri, and deer that are harvested must be taken to a tissue sampling station. Laws like this have been enacted in many other states! I discovered this new regulation after hand carrying two salt licks to remote locations!

https://huntfish.mdc.mo.gov/hunting-trapping/species/deer/regulations

I think you're OK as long as your not in a CWD management zone.

Jeff H said:

I think you're OK as long as your not in a CWD management zone.

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My county is included as are over 40 other counties!

Yes - My property is in Crawford County and that's been our rule the last two years as well. The tissue sampling is only for opening weekend of firearms season and honestly was only a minor inconvenience last year. They were very efficient. I do wish we could use mineral but it is what it is.

Too bad they can't prove that it really helps stop the spread.The question was brought up on bowsite.If that was the issue then you would think the spread would be faster in the biggest baiting state,Texas,has probably more deer eating bait than any other state.But I guess it's better than what some states did when they didn't know what to do and that was use the idea that a dead deer can't spread CWD and killed them all.Funny thing is the Mule deer infection that is one of the biggest and earliest probably has little to no bait

That's coming to Arkansas real soon I feel. Just a way for them to stop baiting in my opinion tho. I'm not a fan of baiting but I can't see the argument against corn but you can plant an apple tree!? What's the difference really


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Right now, AR wants deer in the cwd zone killed. Baiting helps hunters kill deer. They dont allow year round supplemental feeding but allow baiting during season.

In CWD counties antler point restrictions are lifted and hunters can shoot two antlerless deer. Clearly the goal is to dramatically reduce the deer herd as was done in WI and MN.

Reduction did no good in WI.

Food based scents work well as a replacement.
http://store.nelsoncreekoutdoors.com

My family heard about this also and have taken steps to meet the new requirements. I agree that it seems more of an attempt to remove supplemental feeders than necessarily trying to stop the spread of CWD. We were upset with this regulation as we are hitting the 4 year mark on protein feeding (no animal byproducts in our protein feed) and the mineral stations on our property. This past spring we are finally starting to see better bodied deer coming out of the winter stress period compared with previous years. Also, after years of minimal turkey populations on the property, we have finally started seeing turkey - though the spring storms during early nesting periods seemed to come at a bad time as we saw no poults over the summer.

I am currently looking into ways to get the minerals to the deer through plant production in food plots and consumption by the deer. I haven't really found anything yet that seems more than "this possibly could help". I saw on GrowingDeerTV that Dr Woods was trying a fertilizer type thing for Trophy Rock that is like a mineral fertilizer, but unsure if/when it would be marketed for the public. I have also been reading about azomite which is supposedly a mineral supplement for garden plants. If the plants uptake the minerals as the brands promote, then the deer population would get minerals through the consumption of the plants. Currently, only bulk purchasing of azomite is seems to be cost effective compared to mineral stations.

The pros to all of this, my tinkering with food plots on our property is expanding with my dad and uncle giving me the green light to develop the food plots and habitat objectives i've been wanting to imlpement.

I started using Redmond granular minerals this year vs the block type. My county in Missouri is not under any restriction but I wanted to experiment. The cost of the 40 lb bag is the same as a block anyway. I just broadcast it the way I would fertilizer.

Kill downs, no baiting, etc did no good in the CWD zone in northwest Nebraska where I hunt. It is a fact of life there and we just don't worry about it. EHD is another story. It DEVASTATED our herd in 2013, but you don't hear of EHD eradication zones.

Too bad most states biologist don't know how or why it spreads and what to do about it,they just guess and do what ever the other states do even though as mentioned it didn't work there

Deer are very social animals and if they are worried about mouth to mouth or body fluid contact between deer, removing baits sites won't help. They are still going to smell each other and lick each other. They are going to walk past dead infected deer and smell them and possibly touch them. The best thing to be done is find a cure and then figure out a way to spread it throughout the deer and elk populations(good luck with that).

CWD kills 100% of infected deer and can survive in the ground for many, many years. It is in saliva, blood, fecal matter and every other body fluid.

EHD is survivable and produces an antibody that is passed on to the next generation(by the doe that survived), but stops with that fawn. The virus can't survive once outside the host(gnat/midge or deer).

Both are terrible diseases that wreck havoc on deer and elk populations. Some years are worse than others.

Once they find a cure then feeding and baiting must be the way that it could be spread to protect them as they seem to think that is what spreads it even though the states with heaviest baiting don't have the spread other states do.I don't bait for hunting but do for camera surveys and I feed protein

The elk and mule deer populations that have it, the states have never allowed baiting.