Every time Mike and Dana Blevins take their side-by-side around their 300-acre property in Perryville, Missouri, they see something they once had to work hard to bring back: white-tailed deer. It is also a quiet measure of how dramatically the property has changed since the Blevins bought it in 1992.
“We take the side-by-side out with our grandkids, and we will always see deer,” the couple told the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) in its September 2026 Missouri Conservationist feature. “Watching them year-round is a way we monitor the herd. That routine is more than a family outing.
By 1925, an estimated fewer than 400 deer remained in Missouri. The disease was first detected in the state in 2010, after nearly 33,000 deer had been tested. MDC says CWD remains relatively uncommon in much of Missouri, with less than 1% of tested deer statewide testing positive 15 years after the disease was detected.
MDC says widespread habitat destruction and unregulated hunting caused the population to collapse. MDC says nearly half a million people now pursue deer during hunting seasons, reflecting both the abundance of the species and its importance to the state’s outdoor culture. The Blevins’ experience is part of a much bigger Missouri conservation story. Conservation efforts eventually reversed that decline. Protection, regulated hunting and habitat management helped the population recover dramatically. That recovery turned the white-tailed deer into one of Missouri’s most familiar wild animals. For the Blevins, habitat restoration is only one part of protecting the animals they have spent decades watching. Their focus has increasingly turned to chronic wasting disease, or CWD, a fatal and contagious disease affecting white-tailed deer and other members of the deer family. The disease can spread through contact between animals as well as through infectious proteins left in the environment. MDC has been testing Missouri deer for CWD for more than two decades. Missouri’s deer recovery may be one of the state’s major conservation successes, but officials warn that maintaining a healthy herd requires continued work. However, infection becomes harder to manage once it becomes well established in a population. For that reason, the department is shifting its approach toward more localised management, with hunters and landowners playing a central role during regular deer seasons.
Since then, the department has worked with hunters and landowners on efforts to keep infections under control. It is difficult to imagine today, but white-tailed deer once came close to disappearing from the state.