CWD in NW Wisconsin

DNR finds more CWD April 2, 2012 By WRN Contributor The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reports a wild deer in northwestern Wisconsin has tested positive for chronic wasting disease. That deer was found just outside Shell Lake last November. Test results from a laboratory in Ames, Iowa, confirmed the deer was infected. The fatal brain disease was first discovered in Wisconsin near Mount Horeb 10 years ago. The DNR thought it had managed to contain it to a zone around that south-central community by adopting a controversial policy which allowed hunters to kill as many deer as possible there.

Now we have CWD on a game farm in Iowa. Yep! I bet the wild deer in Iowa transferred the disease to the game farm deer. Give me a break. Get rid of game farms!

They need to collect a bunch of deer that are absolutly positively infected with CWD. And feed the meat to prison inmates. And study the effects on their health... Or feed some dogs the meat and see what happens... What would happen if the beloved wolf would contract the CWD from an infected deer? God for bid that would happen........ I think CWD has been here long before we knew it.

And it just happened to be within 10 miles of three other counties so they are affected too!! Give it time and the same thing will happen in the northeast part of the state. I wonder what Vegas odds are on that happening?

A more comprehensive account is in the Journal Sentinel article of April 25, 2012. Sick deer shot The latest case began on Nov. 19, when Brenda Long, a Washburn County sheriff's deputy, was called to observe a deer so sick it couldn't get up, according to a DNR warden's report. The Journal Sentinel obtained the report, emails of DNR communications and other records from the agency regarding their handling of the case. According to those records: Long shot the 3 1/2 -year-old doe in the head on the property of James E. Schmitz of rural Shell Lake. Warden Jonathan Hagen loaded the deer in the back of his truck and informed Schmitz the deer would be tested and he'd report the findings back to him. Hagen filled out a chronic wasting data collection form and left the deer in the DNR's freezer in Spooner. Later that night, he spoke with a DNR wildlife biologist and told her that he had collected the carcass of a sick deer. The biologist, Nancy Christel, sent an email two days later to three DNR employees, including a veterinarian and microbiologist, saying, "I collected the head of a deer that was very emaciated and hunters could walk right up to and practically touch it . . . " "How quickly do you want it?" The microbiologist directed Christel to send the head for testing in the next couple of weeks, and according to another email, DNR personnel shipped the head to the Madison area on Dec. 7. Meanwhile, the deer's carcass was taken by DNR staff to Beaver Brook Wildlife Area, about 5 miles from where it was shot, and left along a public trail. Scavengers worked on the carcass over the winter, the DNR told members of the public at a meeting Monday night in Spooner. The deer's head was first sent to a transfer site in Madison that contains a freezer for wildlife. The animals are eventually shipped to a facility in Black Earth, west of Madison, where they are thawed and their tissues prepared for testing at a state lab. It isn't clear whether personnel at the Madison site told Black Earth about the deer, Tom Hauge, director of wildlife management, told board members on Wednesday. "Basically, we had a communications failure," he said in an interview. The tissue from the diseased deer was extracted at the Black Earth facility on March 6, the DNR said this week. On March 23, the DNR received the first report from the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Madison of what was described as a "weak," positive test result from the Washburn County deer. The lab performed additional testing on lymph and brain tissue. On March 28, the lab produced more definitive results. Stepp was notified, and on March 29, a DNR employee delivered the suspect tissue to the National Veterinarian Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. The next day, a Friday, the Iowa lab confirmed the finding, and DNR officials publicized the results the next Monday.

Tell me what county is gonna send a deputy off into the woods to shoot a deer that looks sick? In this case..........Washburn County. "The Washburn County doe was found on a small parcel of private land near Shell Lake on Nov. 19, the opening weekend of gun deer season. The landowner noticed the sick deer near some buildings, and called the DNR info line. The sheriff's department was dispatched to the scene. The deer was emaciated and its hair was falling out - common signs of CWD. It was laying down, and could be approached and touched. The deer was euthanized by a sheriff's deputy and submitted for CWD testing." This accounting has been in a myriad of newspapers across the state.

Grandview, Yes it is a crock.... A sheriff deputy is gonna walk off the shoulder of the road or right away, go in the woods and dispatch a deer that looks sick. Who is kidding us, you or the state. Tell me what county is gonna send a deputy off into the woods to shoot a deer that looks sick? Really? Then on top of it they loose it, or wait, forget its in a shed in mad town. Really? Sincerely, Super highinthetree

Its a scam. A random road kill tested, then the head was lost for a month or so. Complete JOKE!!! Well...........not a scam or a road kill, and certainly not a joke. With the exception of the idiocy of leaving the carcass in the field to continue contamination. "Hauge walked board members through the discovery on Wednesday, saying a landowner found the animal sick Nov. 19, opening day of the state's traditional gun season. A Washburn County sheriff's deputy shot the animal and a DNR warden took possession of the head for tissue samples. DNR staff left the carcass in the Beaver Brook Wildlife Area."

Its a scam. A random road kill tested, then the head was lost for a month or so. Complete JOKE!!!

I agree, and passing more hunting restrictions and increasing harvest will not prevent its spread. I also agree with the money thing. I feel that these diseases are sometimes used as ploys to get more money from the feds or state. The fish VHS thing really comes to mind. How much money has been wasted with this disease? I would really like to know. This disease was supposed to result in massive fish kills all over the state. Even where it is present, you don't hear boo about massive fish kills. We are left with more restrictions. Can't any longer trap minnows from the local stream to use to fish with. Local bait shops can no longer trap minnows to sell in their shop. As a result, we are funding more research for another disease that ultimately won't be stopped, and are left with $6/dozen minnows. The DNR and EPA and other regulatory agencies run out of new laws and ways to generate money. They have to create or exaggerate new problems to keep their employment. That is my view.

Then explain to me how CWD has popped up in places across North America hundreds of miles from any game farm, or any known positive CWD deer. Blaming game farms does not explain it. Game farms can spread it surely, but it doesn't explain how the disease is "popping up" in many places. I feel that the vector of the disease has not been completely realized yet.

Nope, and I am against deer farms in the state. Blaming the deer farms completely for CWD though is wrong in my opinion as evidenced by the Shell Lake deer.

wow JC do you own a deer farm? That reads like reheared talking points!

The reason for the immediate herd reduction in the southern cwd zone verses the northern cwd zone is population density. Southern = 80+ dpsm, Northern= less than 20 dpsm.

Then stop the slaughter down south!

Learned that they cant really do much to stop it.