Mississippi will start its 2020-21 deer season with 55 confirmed cases of chronic wasting disease divided among six counties. A total of 8,487 deer have been sampled since the first case was identified in January 2018 and confirmed a month later.
Most cases are concentrated in two counties in north Mississippi — Benton and Marshall — that border Tennessee in areas where the neighboring state has had an explosion of cases. Benton County has confirmed 33 cases, including seven in 2019 and 26 in 2020. Marshall County has confirmed 16 cases, including nine in 2020.
Issaquena County is a distant third with two cases, one each in 2018 and 2019. Panola, Pontotoc and Tallahatchie counties each had one confirmed case in 2019.
By comparison, Tennessee has confirmed 409 cases in Fayette County just north of Benton County and 144 cases in Hardeman County, just north of Marshall County, over the past two years. Tennessee has confirmed 576 cases in seven different counties.
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