(File Photo of a Deer Approaching Sign)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Harrisburg, PA) A select group of hunters in Pennsylvania will now have a new way to test their deer for Chronic Wasting Disease as part of a pilot project which allows hunters to mail their samples to a laboratory. 

The Pennsylvania Game Commission sent letters to random hunters across the state recently asking if they would like to have a sampling kit and to provide feedback on the program. 

According to Jeannine Fleegle, a wildlife biologist with the PGC’s deer and elk section, the progam “will allow hunters to collect the appropriate tissue for testing.”

Chronic Wasting Disease is a fatal neurological brain disease that can happen in animals like deer, elk and moose and it was first discovered in the state of Pennsylvania in 2012.