The Wisconsin DNR confirms the first positive test result for chronic wasting disease in a wild deer in Chippewa County. This hunter-harvested, 1-year-old buck is the first wild CWD-positive deer in Chippewa County.
The hunter harvested the deer within 10 miles of the Barron and Dunn County borders.
This detection will cause the following:
- Chippewa County will renew a 3-year baiting and feeding ban already in place.
- Barron County will renew a 2-year baiting and feeding ban already in place.
- Dunn County currently has a 3-year baiting and feeding ban in place for positive detections within the county, so this detection will not impact Dunn County.
The DNR and the Chippewa County Deer Advisory Council are hosting a public meeting on Feb. 6 at 6:30 p.m. At the meeting, DNR staff will provide information about CWD in Wisconsin and local testing efforts within Chippewa County.
CWD is a fatal, infectious nervous system disease of deer, moose, elk, and reindeer/caribou. It belongs to the family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies or prion diseases. The DNR began monitoring the state’s wild white-tailed deer population for CWD in 1999. Wisconsin found its first positive cases in 2002.
State law requires that the DNR enact a three-year baiting and feeding ban in counties with CWD, as well as a two-year ban in adjoining counties within 10 miles of a CWD detection. If additional CWD cases are found during the lifetime of a baiting and feeding ban, the ban will renew for an additional two or three years.
Baiting or feeding deer encourages them to congregate unnaturally around a shared food source where infected deer can spread CWD through direct contact with healthy deer or indirectly by leaving behind infectious prions in their saliva, blood, feces, and urine. Learn more: https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/hunt/bait
