CWD found at Trempealeau farm
Chronic wasting disease has been found in two captive whitetailed deer in Trempealeau County, the first detections of the fatal disease in the county and a larger deer-rich area of western Wisconsin.
The discoveries at Brush Ranch Outfitters, a deer farm and shooting preserve in Galesville, were announced Tuesday by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
The CWD-positive animals were 3.5-year-old bucks killed in November 2019 by paying customers at the facility.
The test results, which normally are obtained within a month, took much longer in this case. The information was received June 3 from the National Veterinary Services Laboratories, according to DATCP. No explanation for the delay was provided.
Prior to the announcement, CWD had not been detected in a block of eight contiguous counties in one of Wisconsin's deer hunting meccas bordering and extending east of the Mississippi River.
As the Department of Natural Resources has adopted a policy of monitoring — not attempting to control — the disease spread and DATCP has allowed many CWDpositive captive deer facilities to remain open, CWD has showed up in new sites each year.
Only 33 of Wisconsin's 72 counties have yet to have a CWD-positive result in either a captive or wild deer.
The finding at Brush Ranch Outfitters fits a troubling pattern of deer farms as the initial sites of CWD detections in counties and regions.
Earlier this year the first wild deer was found with CWD in Marathon County, near a shooting ranch that has had more than 100 CWDtion, positive captive deer over the last five years. A similar scenario played out in Eau Claire and Oneida counties.
Rules and regulations of the deer farming industry have proven inadequate to prevent CWD from infecting more captive herds each year, in turn presenting a risk to the state's valuable wild deer herd, according to wildlife health experts.
"In multiple instances in Wisconsin we've seen initial CWD detections in a captive cervid facility, followed by findings in wild deer in the area," said Bryan Richards, emerging disease coordinator with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison. "Given time and opportunity, it suggests that disease can and will leak from these facilities out into our free-ranging populations."
Deer hunting and deer-related wildlife viewing in Wisconsin has more than a $1.5 billion annual economic impact in the state, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Chronic wasting disease is a contagious neurological disease affecting deer, elk and moose.
It causes a characteristic spongy degeneration of the brains of infected animals resulting in emacia
abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death, according to the CWD Alliance.
First documented in 1967 at a Colorado research facility, the disease has spread to at least 26 states and several foreign countries.
It's not known how the disease spread to Wisconsin; the first CWD-positive deer were detected in late 2001 in the wild herd near Mt. Horeb. Testing over the next year also found CWD at four Wisconsin deer farms.
It has now been detected at 27 captive deer facilities in the state, according to DATCP; 18 have been depopulated.
Elected officials and agency directors have been unwilling to actively address the disease over the last decade.
The Republican-controlled Legislature rebuffed efforts in 2018 by then Gov. Scott Walker to strengthen measures related to the disease, including a proposal to require double fencing at deer farms.
And legislators in the recentlyended session failed to pass any new laws or provide additional funding to battle the disease.
The CWD finding at Brush Ranch Outfitters is the second time the facility has been in statewide news in the last year. In 2019 its owners were ordered to pay $17,505 in civil forfeitures for illegal activity at and around their facility, including running an illegal deer-hunting operation and luring wild deer inside its fence.
The charges were the result of a DNR investigation. DATCP did not issue any sanctions on the owners.
As a result of the CWD findings, Brush Ranch Outfitters has been placed under a quarantine by DATCP.
No live animals or whole carcasses will be permitted to leave the property. Brush Ranch Outfitters has 505 animals on 1,597 acres, according to DATCP.
The herd remains under quarantine while an epidemiological investigation is conducted by DATCP and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) veterinarians and staff.