Wisconsin Deer Disease Confined

The latest test results of deer killed in Wisconsin’s fall hunts continue to show that a fatal brain disease in whitetail deer is confined to an area west of this city, the state Department of Natural Resources said Friday.

But the testing found four more deer killed in the Mount Horeb area southwest of Madison were infected with chronic wasting disease, bringing the total to 48 since the disease was discovered in February.

So far, the department said, 703 deer killed in areas beyond Mount Horeb have been tested for the disease and all the tests were negative.

The newest report indicates 3,880 deer in Wisconsin have now been tested for the disease, with about 30,000 samples still to be analyzed.

Recent testing in Colorado detected the disease in elk for the first time in areas near Kremmling, Meeker and Rangely. The disease has been detected in 175 deer and elk around Colorado this season.

In another Wisconsin development, the owner of a Portage County deer farm where the first deer in a captive herd with chronic wasting disease was discovered wants a judge to block the state from killing his herd.

Stan Hall, owner of Buckhorn Flats Game Farm near Almond, filed a lawsuit in Portage County Circuit Court seeking an injunction to stop the destruction of his herd. Hall alleges the state has stonewalled his efforts to obtain documents that could show the buck shot Sept. 4 on his farm didn’t have the disease. A hearing is scheduled for next Thursday.

On Wednesday, federal sharpshooters, hired by the state Agriculture Department, killed 118 whitetail deer at a private deer farm near Eagle where a captive deer also was diagnosed with chronic wasting disease. It was the first private deer herd in Wisconsin to be destroyed in the aftermath of the discovery of the disease, said Donna Gilson, an Agriculture Department spokeswoman.

The disease was found for the first time in the state’s wild herd in February in three bucks shot last year near Mount Horeb. It marked the first time the disease had been found east of the Mississippi River.