Wednesday meetings in Harpers Ferry, Waukon will focus on CWD

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is hosting a pair of public meetings Wednesday, April 23 in Allamakee County to update the public on chronic wasting disease and seek public input on partnering with hunters, taxidermists and meat processing lockers to increase surveillance on the area’s deer herd. The meetings are being held in response to a deer harvested near Harpers Ferry during the first shotgun hunting season last December testing positive for chronic wasting disease, the first wild deer to do so in the state of Iowa.
The first of those meetings is scheduled for Wednesday, April 23 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. at the Ethel Robinson Meehan Community Center, located at 238 North Fourth Street in Harpers Ferry. The second meeting opportunity is scheduled from 6-8 p.m. that same day at the Waukon Banquet Center, located at 612 Rossville Road in Waukon. A Tuesday, April 22 meeting, from 6-8 p.m., was also scheduled at the Monona Community Center in Monona.
The DNR has begun collecting samples from road-killed deer in the Allamakee County area. At the meeting, attendees will identify other ways the public can help, like reporting sick deer to conservation officers or wildlife staff and working with DNR staff to obtain additional samples from deer taken in the area this fall.