The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is releasing information on the conclusion of a study and how hunters can help.

The full release from Randy Sellers of AGFC is below:

Jasper-The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is wrapping up a four-year population study concerning the effects of chronic wasting disease and is asking hunters for their help recovering the deer tagged for the project.

During the last four years, researchers from the University of Georgia have trapped adult male and female deer and their fawns in Newton and Searcy counties and tracked their movements, reproduction and causes of mortality using GPS-telemetry collars. Each deer was tested with a live test for CWD, collared and released.

“Now that the project is coming to an end, this is a great opportunity for hunters to help in a citizen science capacity, harvesting the monitored deer that are left,” Dr. Jenn Ballard, state wildlife veterinarian with the AGFC, said. “We will retest each of them to gather more information and help us get the most out of this research.”

Cory Gray, chief of the AGFC’s Research Division, says about 38 deer remain from the study and they will be removed soon, but hunters can help the AGFC’s work by shooting these deer during the remainder of the season. Most of the deer were outfitted with easily visible GPS-telemetry collars, but some were marked with ear tags. Any hunter seeing deer with collars or ear tags is encouraged to harvest them.

“Hunters have been able to harvest these research deer throughout the study to make sure we understand how harvest rates influence deer populations in the real world,” Gray said. “This announcement is more of an encouragement to lend a hand in the research by harvesting these final deer and calling us to get the samples needed to wrap up the project.”