http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.php?Id=1353&yr=2015
Wisconsin Ag Connection – 11/18/2015
State wildlife officials will continue testing harvested white-tailed deer for chronic wasting disease this year. This testing is part of the DNR’s ongoing efforts to monitor the status and spread of the disease in Wisconsin.
“We provide testing as a service to deer hunters, but it is also important in our efforts to monitor the distribution and prevalence of the disease,” said Tami Ryan, DNR wildlife health section chief. “We will continue testing and tracking this disease within our long-term monitoring areas in southern Wisconsin where CWD is regularly found. Long-term monitoring provides useful data that increases our understanding of CWD dynamics and impacts.”
The agency will be testing deer from select areas of the state. Surveillance will focus on adult deer, since older deer are more likely to have the disease.
Meanwhile, the DNR will continue to collect samples from deer harvested in Dane, Iowa, Rock, Walworth, Washburn, Juneau, Adams, Portage and Marathon counties.
New for 2015, wildlife staff will be sampling in the Fairchild/Augusta area in Eau Claire County, where the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture discovered a CWD-positive deer on a private deer farm earlier this year. In Marquette and Green Lake counties, samples will be collected at select taxidermists throughout the deer hunting season.
