MADISON (NBC 26) — The Wisconsin DNR is confirming a case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a deer harvested in Waupaca County.
The DNR said Thursday the deer was a hunter-harvested 2-year-old doe and is the first confirmed wild CWD-positive deer detection in Waupaca County. The deer tested positive in the town of Harrison, within 10 miles of the Shawano, Marathon, and Portage County borders.
As required by state law, the DNR says it enacts three-year baiting and feeding bans in counties where CWD has been detected and two-year bans in adjoining counties that lie within 10 miles of a CWD detection. Deer baiting and feeding have been banned in Waupaca County since 2014, initially due to CWD detections in farm-raised deer in Marathon County within 10 miles of the county border.
The ban has been maintained due to CWD detections in wild and farm-raised deer in adjacent counties within 10 miles, as well as CWD detections in farm-raised deer within the county. Following state law, the DNR will renew a three-year baiting and feeding ban in Waupaca County.
Due to CWD-positive detections within Shawano, Marathon, and Portage counties, the DNR says the current expiration date of the current baiting and feeding bans in those counties is unaffected by this recent detection in Waupaca County.
The DNR says baiting and feeding encourage deer 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.
