JACKSON -- Additional state workers along with federal employees are being assigned to check animals killed during the fall hunting season in northwest Wyoming for chronic wasting disease.

The disease affects the nervous system of members of the deer family, causing infected animals to act abnormally, waste away and die.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department said its regional office is adding one person for six months and redistributing some permanent biologists to help collect samples.

Grand Teton National Park biologists and rangers will participate in sample collection from checking stations, hunting camps, meat processors and taxidermy shops.

"We haven't put a lot of effort into getting tissue samples (there) before," said John Henningsen of the Game and Fish Department.

A moose in Star Valley tested positive for chronic wasting disease in October 2008, marking the first time the disease was detected in an area near elk winter feeding grounds in northwest Wyoming.

Environmentalists worry the disease -- invariably fatal -- could spread rapidly at the grounds in the Yellowstone region.

Workers making the checks are being trained to remove retro-pharyngeal lymph nodes from the necks of deer, elk and moose. The infectious agent in chronic wasting disease can accumulate in the nodes.

"Typically it's one biologist that takes a bare-bones amount of information from hunters," said Henningsen.

He said he would like to collect about 350 samples from the Jackson Elk Herd, 100 samples from the Fall Creek Elk Herd, and 50 samples form the Star Valley/Greys River region.

"Hopefully we can get a lot more deer samples," Henningsen said. "Ideally, we would flip our sample sizes and get more deer than we do elk."

In wild populations, deer carry the disease at a higher rate than elk or moose. In an area where the disease has never been found, it would most likely appear in deer first, Henningsen said.

He said most hunters are willing to provide samples from the game they kill, though it's not mandatory.

"Hunters seem to be concerned about the health of the wildlife they are hunting," he said.

Some deer and elk hunting seasons began this month.