CWD positive deer found in Dunn County
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — A Whitetail deer killed during bow season near 3M in Menomonie has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease.
This was the first wild CWD deer in Dunn County, although the first CWD deer in this area was detected in Eau Claire County in 2017 with three more positives in Eau Claire County in 2018, said Melissa Sparrow-Lien, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, at a meeting of the Dunn County Deer Advisory Council held February 12 at the Dunn County Judicial Center.
CWD is a prion (protein particle) disease that impacts the nervous system of deer, elk, moose and reindeer in Norway, she said.
Other prion diseases are scrapie in sheep, “mad cow” disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans, Sparrow-Lien said.
CWD is a 100 percent fatal disease in deer, and the animal will often show signs of the disease in a year or a year and a half after exposure. The deer can look healthy right up until a few months before it dies of the disease, and the symptoms can include looking emaciated, showing no fear of people and drooling, she said.
Feeding and baiting bans are enacted because the sick animals drool, and the disease can be spread through urine and feces as well as by a contaminated environment, Sparrow-Lien said.
A CWD deer can urinate on a plant, and then some time later, another deer can come along and eat the plant and contract CWD, she said, noting that the CWD prions can stay in the soil for several years.
Although there have been no cases of humans contracting CWD from eating the venison of a sick deer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization do not recommend eating CWD deer, Sparrow-Lien said.
CWD is located in 26 states around the country and in 43 counties in Wisconsin, she said.
Wisconsin has 72 counties all together.
Finding a CWD deer changes whether deer can be fed or baited, and it changes how deer carcasses are moved and how they should be disposed of, Sparrow-Lien said.
Engagement and participation is the way forward, and the DNR needs everyone’s help, she said.
Dunn County was previously under a three-year feeding/baiting ban because of the CWD deer found in Eau Claire, but the ban will be extended three years because of the positive CWD deer found in Dunn County, Sparrow-Lien said.
Surveillance area
The Dunn County Deer Advisory Council (C-DAC) will provide recommendations for the CWD surveillance area and the landowner permit area, Sparrow-Lien said.
Testing is voluntary and can be done through kiosks set up by the DNR, taxidermists and meat processors, she said, adding that more information about CWD testing is available on the DNR website.
The DNR also tests car-killed deer and deer that look sick, Sparrow-Lien said.
The sample goal for the surveillance area will be the testing of 296 deer for CWD. A surveillance area can be determined either by a 10-mile circle around where the deer was found or by other boundaries, such as roads and rivers, she said.
While the Dunn C-DAC will make the final recommendation for the boundaries of the surveillance area, Sparrow-Lien suggested that the boundaries could be county Highway C south of Menomonie, the Dunn/Chippewa county line and Dunn/Eau Claire county line to the east, state Highway 170 to the north, and state Highway 25 and Highway 79 to the west.
Using those parameters, the surveillance area would include most of the Towns of Colfax, Tainter and Sherman, the southwest corner of the Town of Otter Creek, the Village of Wheeler, a small strip on the southern portion of the Town of Hay River, the northeast corner of the Town of Stanton, the eastern portion of the Town of Menomonie, all of the Town of Red Cedar, all of the Town of Elk Mound, the northern three-quarters of the Town of Spring Brook, and about a third of the northeast corner of the Town of Dunn.
Landowner permits
In the landowner permit area, which is an area closer to where the CWD deer was found, deer that are killed must be submitted for testing, Sparrow-Lien said.
The Dunn C-DAC will determine how many permits will be issued to landowners and what the timeframe will be for permits, she said, noting that landowner permits could be issued from September 1 to April 30.
The landowner permit area could include the boundaries of state Highway 40 to the east, county Highway B to the north, the Tainter Lake area to the west and U.S. Highway 12 to the south.
Townships in the landowner permit area would be a portion of the Town of Elk Mound west of Highway 40; the Town of Red Cedar north of Highway 12; the Town of Tainter south of Tainter Lake; and the southwest corner of the Town of Colfax south of Highway B and west of Highway 40.
If the sampling goals are not met, the Dunn C-DAC can require mandatory deer harvest, in-person registration, mandatory sampling for CWD, trapping and euthanasia of deer, additional days of hunting, additional tags for hunting, financial incentives, and localized culling with landowner contracts, Sparrow-Lien said.
4 strategies
There are four things hunters can do to help monitor and contain the spread of CWD, Sparrow-Lien said.
The number one thing hunters can do is test the deer that they kill, and they can also encourage other hunters to have their deer tested, she said.
Disposing of deer carcasses properly also is essential in helping contain the disease.
Dunn County Fish & Game sponsored a Dumpster at the DNR office for carcasses this past fall. All together, seven tons of deer carcasses were put in the Dumpsters, which means if any of them were carrying CWD, the disease was taken off the landscape, Sparrow-Lien said.
When deer carcasses are left on the landscape, scavengers, such as coyotes and eagles, pick at the carcasses and can spread CWD, she said.
The Dumpsters went to the incinerator in Barron for disposal, and the DNR is planning to have Dumpsters available again this year for deer hunting season, Sparrow-Lien said.
Since the DNR has a limited budget, clubs and other organizations are welcome to sponsor the testing kiosks and the Dumpsters, she noted.
Hunters can also talk to C-DAC members and can engage and participate in C-DAC meetings, Sparrow-Lien said.
Members of the Dunn County Deer Advisory Council include Al Marotz (chair); Mike Gullickson (alternate chair); Paul Sterk; Dan Loonstra; Jim Thompson; Bob Bernier.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Dunn County Deer Advisory Council will be April 7 at 6 p.m. at Dunn County Fish & Game, 1600 Pine Avenue, Menomonie.
Members of the council encourage the public to attend the April 7 meeting to communicate their ideas and opinions about the CWD surveillance area and landowner permits and permit area.
The council will make recommendations at this meeting, and then there will be a 30-day period for public comment and review.
The Dunn County Deer Advisory Council will meet again on May 6 to finalize their recommendations and to chart a path forward through the summer in preparation for fall hunting.
Following the DNR presentation at the February 12 meeting, there was a question and answer session.
A story on the question and answer session is published elsewhere in this issue.