Missouri Requires CWD Sampling in 28 Counties on Opening Weekend, Nov. 14 and 15

Missouri hunters who take a deer in one of 28 counties on November 14 or 15, 2026, the opening weekend of the November firearms portion, must bring the deer or its head to a Missouri Department of Conservation sampling station the same day. The department repeated the requirement in a November 6 release for its northwest region. It is the first year of a four-year county rotation that will put every Missouri county through a mandatory chronic wasting disease (CWD) sampling weekend, the fatal prion disease of deer and other cervids, once.

The department’s mandatory sampling page lists the 2026 counties as Andrew, Atchison, Audrain, Benton, Buchanan, Callaway, Carter, Cedar, Dade, Greene, Holt, Iron, Lawrence, Lincoln, Monroe, Montgomery, Nodaway, Oregon, Pike, Polk, Ralls, Reynolds, Ripley, Shannon, St. Charles, St. Clair, Warren and Wayne. Stations are open from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. both days. Sampling takes a few minutes: staff cut an incision across the neck to remove lymph nodes, and the samples go to an independent lab.

In the northwest region the five counties are Andrew, Atchison, Buchanan, Holt and Nodaway. Their stations are the Andrew County Youth Building and Fairgrounds in Savannah, the Atchison City Barn in Tarkio, the Agency Community Center, Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge near Forest City and the Nodaway County Community Fair Building in Maryville.

Hunters in any county can also have a deer sampled voluntarily at any time during the deer seasons, at department offices, cooperating taxidermists and meat processors, and self-service freezers. A freezer drop-off takes the head with about six inches of neck attached, with the antlers removed from bucks, labeled with the hunter’s name, contact information, Telecheck ID number and harvest location on the materials at the freezer.

The rotation is one of several changes for the 2026 season listed on the department’s CWD page. The CWD Management Zone is gone, because most Missouri counties have either had a case or sit within 10 miles of one, and the CWD portion of the firearms season is gone with it. Antler-point restrictions were removed in the last 18 counties that had it, and the acreage requirement for a CWD Management Permit rose to 20 acres. Placing feed and minerals for deer remains prohibited in counties within 10 miles of a detection, which this year adds Benton, Johnson and Pettis counties. The statewide infection rate remains under 1 percent, the department says, while some local areas are approaching 5 percent, the level at which it says spread accelerates.

Firearms deer hunting opened with the early antlerless portion October 9 to 11, and the remaining firearms portions run through January 5, 2027. Archery season runs through November 13 and reopens November 25 through January 15, 2027. The November firearms portion, and the mandatory sampling weekend with it, opens November 14.