STRONG – A state wildlife biologist is seeking help from hunters who bag deer from now through the end of next month’s muzzle-loading season in certain areas of Franklin, Oxford and Somerset counties.

Chuck Hulsey wants to collect two lymph nodes and spinal tissue from deer to send away for testing for chronic wasting disease, which involves a protein that builds up like plaque on the brain, slowly killing the animal.

The disease has not been found any farther east than New York, Hulsey said.

Due to difficulties in finding deer taken in Andover, Kingfield, New Sharon and in the following plantations – Coplin in Franklin County, Lincoln in Oxford County and The Forks in Somerset County – Hulsey is seeking hunter assistance. He can be reached at 592-6255.