Stories from Friday, February 19, 2021

Commission approves updated CWD management plan The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission unanimously approved an update to the agency’s official Chronic Wasting Disease Management and Response Plan at today’s meeting. The meeting was condensed to a single day and conducted via teleconferencing software because of impassable roads throughout much of the state. A feed of the meeting is available on the AGFC’s YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrbxMWl7Wdk&feature=youtu.be...

In the world of wildlife management, harvest records usually are broken by small percentages. But bear hunters in Arkansas broke the record of 577 set during the 2018 season by taking 665 in 2020 – a jump of 15 percent. “The increase of almost 100 bears was largely due to two factors: The fact that there was a sparse mast crop across the state and the fact that we increased the bear zone quota from 345 bears to 500 bears,” Myron Means, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission large carnivore program coordinator, said during the January Commission meeting.. ...