Posted: 9/11/02

DNR details Aitkin County CWD response

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is preparing to kill and test wild deer for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) near the Aitkin County farm where the disease was recently discovered in a captive bull elk.

To ensure safety, qualified and trained DNR staff will begin shooting and collecting samples from as many adult deer as possible (between 50 and 100) within a nine-square-mile area surrounding the farm.

Shooting teams will work mainly in the evenings in five-day blocks of time. Shooting will be limited or suspended on weekends.

Brainstem samples will be collected and tested at a USDA-certified facility as quickly as possible. Results from the tests are expected within weeks.

The culling operation will be led by Dave Schad, who was recently appointed the DNR central region wildlife manager, but who has been temporarily reassigned to this duty.

The DNR will also rely on hunters to collect samples during the fall hunting season. Permit area 154 has been added to the permit areas from which samples will be collected during the firearms deer season.

Depending on the initial results, special firearms seasons may be considered in parts of permit area 154.

Although the DNR is aggressively sampling wild deer, according to DNR Wildlife Research Manager Mike DonCarlos, the presence of CWD in a captive elk doesn't mean the disease is in the wild herd.

"Several states and provinces have found CWD in captive elk facilities, but they have not yet found it in the wild," DonCarlos said.

Those states include Kansas, Oklahoma and Montana and the Canadian province of Alberta.
The DNR will continue with plans to conduct CWD tests on more than 5,000 hunter-harvested deer in selected permit areas across Minnesota.

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