DNR to conduct public meeting to discuss Chronic Wasting Disease

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DNR to conduct public meeting to discuss Chronic Wasting Disease
(Released February 4, 2011)


Those interested in learning more about efforts to manage Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in southeastern Minnesota can attend a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) public input meeting from 7-9 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 14, at the Pine Island High School cafeteria.

DNR staff will present current CWD information and plans for winter deer surveillance. A panel of experts from the DNR, the Minnesota Board of Animal Health and the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association will be present to answer questions.

The public is encouraged to attend the meeting, at which the DNR will outline what it has learned since the disease was discovered in January.

CWD is a fatal brain disease that affects deer, elk and moose, but not cattle or humans. The disease was confirmed in Minnesota’s first wild deer Jan. 25. An archer harvested that deer near Pine Island in November 2010.

The DNR has been actively on the lookout for CWD since 2002, when the disease was first found in a domestic elk farm in central Minnesota. The agency has been conducting surveillance for the disease because an important management strategy is early detection.

DNR increased its southeastern Minnesota wild deer CWD surveillance efforts in fall 2009 after tests in January 2009 determined that a captive elk on a farm near Pine Island was infected with CWD. The elk farm was depopulated in fall of 2009 and a total of four CWD positive captive elk were found. Heightened wild deer surveillance efforts continued in 2010, with one CWD-positive deer detected.

Since 2002, the DNR has tested more than 32,000 hunter-harvested or road-killed deer, 60 elk and 90 moose as part of its early CWD detection strategy.