Posted: 3/12/03

No positives found on CWD tests

No positives have been found in more than 5,000 Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) tests run on brain-stem samples collected from Minnesotaís wild deer during the fall of 2002, the Department of Natural Resources announced recently.

The University of Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory has completed testing on 4,462 samples collected at registration stations during the 2002 firearms deer season. An additional 540 samples were tested at the request of hunters who paid veterinarians to extract samples. CWD is a fatal brain disease of deer and elk that has been found in two farmed elk but no wild deer in Minnesota.

ìThis is great news, but by no means are we saying that Minnesota's wild deer population has a clean bill of health,î said Mike DonCarlos, research manager for the DNR Division of Wildlife.

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