AMONG NEARLY 800 WHITE-tailed deer spleens mailed to a Minnesota state lab in 2019 were three from Barry Sampson, who hunts with his nephews on his forested property. His samples—along with 61 percent of the total from varied landscapes across the state—were found to contain pesticides called neonicotinoids. “I am puzzled at how this got into the deer,” he says, “and I’m not happy about it.”
The results, released in March, suggest how
