Wisconsin finds chronic wasting disease in elk
Date: 27-Mar-03
Country: USA
The illness, which is related to mad cow disease, was discovered in Wisconsin's wild deer herd in February 2002 and has since been found in 80 deer, all from a southwestern area of the state. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has also been found previously in six farmed Wisconsin deer.
CWD causes symptoms similar to mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Both fatal illnesses involve prions, abnormal proteins that destroy the brain.
Unlike mad cow, CWD has not been shown to infect cattle or humans. However, health experts have advised against eating venison or other parts of infected elk or deer.
The CWD-positive elk, a 6-year-old female, was one of 20 captive animals that owner Eugene Sperber of Valders, Wis., had imported in 2000 and 2001 from a farm in Stearns County, Minnesota. Wisconsin officials quarantined Sperber's herd last September after learning that the source herd in Minnesota may have been exposed to CWD.
After one elk in the Minnesota herd tested positive for the disease in January, Sperber agreed to have his animals killed.
One of the 20 had died previously and was not tested. Sperber's remaining 19 elk were to be depopulated on March 21, but one was killed in a fight with another elk on March 5.
The elk that was killed was the female that tested positive for CWD. The animal had shown no visible signs of illness, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection spokeswoman Donna Gilson said.
Test results on the other 18 animals were pending.
Sperber has 180 more elk on his eastern Wisconsin property from other sources. The fate of those animals had not been determined, Gilson said.
"We have to do a whole investigation to decide what route we should take with the remainder of his animals," Gilson said, adding that Sperber had been "very cooperative."
The Stearns County, Minnesota, herd was destroyed in January. However, elk from the same herd had been sold to 40 other Minnesota herds and 20 herds in eight other states, Malissa Fritz of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health said.
Minnesota officials have notified officials in the eight states and have been tracking the movement of all elk that left the Stearns County herd over the last five years, Fritz said.