KALISPELL — Saturday is the first day of general deer and elk hunting season in Montana.
“Opening weekend of hunting season is kind of like the first day at the ski resort, everybody’s excited they got their gear out and they want to get out there and have some fun, and so we’re anticipating a pretty busy start to the season,” said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Spokesman Dillon Tabish.
Tabish said hunters need to follow rules and regulations closely to make sure everyone has a safe season.
“Just really important to kind of go through that mental checklist like you remember from hunter education, safety with the firearms, make sure you have your hunter’s orange on, make sure you got your licenses, just kind of going through that checklist,” said Tabish.
Tabish said hunters are not required to have their game tested for Chronic Wasting Disease, but it is recommended.
CWD is a progressive, fatal neurological disease that infects members of the deer family, such as mule and white-tailed deer, elk, and moose.
Animals may be infected and contagious for a very long time, sometimes two years or longer, before symptoms appear.
“And so it’s just a good way to be sure that your animal doesn’t have Chronic Wasting Disease, it’s not recommended if your animal is positive that you eat it, if you do have a positive animal though we will give you a new license, so you just got to work with us, give us that animal, we will give you a new license,” added Tabish.
Hunters are required to stop at check stations going to or coming from the field, with or without game.
“First off they are required by law to stop, it’s one of the responsibilities and the privilege to hunt is to come through the hunter check station," said FWP Wildlife Biologist Franz Ingelfinger.
Ingelfinger said hunters provide valuable information about the harvest during check-in stops.
“Primarily we’re looking at age structure of the harvest, so we collect teeth and that gives us a sense of age structure which helps us look at what the population is doing as a whole.”
