BLODGETT — The Oregon Fish & Wildlife Department will be staffing a check station to sample elk for chronic wasting disease on Saturday during the first Western Coast elk season. The station will be open from from 8 a.m. to dusk in Blodgett in the large gravel parking lot on the north side of Oregon Highway 20.
New this year, hunters transporting deer, elk or other wildlife parts who encounter a chronic wasting disease check station are required to stop to have their animal inspected under a law passed by the 2021 Oregon Legislature.
Successful hunters who don’t drive past the Blodgett check station can also contact their local ODFW office to arrange for district staff to get a sample or ask their meat processor or taxidermist. Here is a list of participating ODFW offices and businesses.
Hunters should call ahead and make an appointment at an ODFW office in advance as biologists are often in the field. Some offices will have barrels outside so hunters can submit a head after hours; use bags and ID card to provide ODFW ID number, contact information, and harvest location.
The sample will be collected from the animal’s spinal column near the brain, and the lymph nodes from near the pharynx or upper throat region. The animal’s head should be kept cool prior to sampling if possible. Test results are expected to take up to a month.
ODFW has sampled more than 24,000 deer and elk for chronic wasting disease over the past 20 years as the disease began to spread from Colorado and Wyoming to other states due to animal migrations and movements of live animals and carcasses. Oregon’s surveillance effort has not detected the disease in free-ranging deer, elk or moose within state borders. Unfortunately, it was found in mule deer, Rocky Mountain elk and white-tailed deer in northwest Idaho, just 30 miles from the Oregon border, late last year.
The more animals the state tests, the more certain ODFW can be that the disease is not in the state. If it is detected, ODFW can implement its response plan to contain the spread of the disease.
