WINNEBAGO COUNTY (NBC 26) — A wild deer has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Winnebago County, in the town of Nepeuskun, confirmed by the Wisconsin DNR.
The deer was a three-year-old doe located within 10 miles of the Waushara County, Green Lake County and Fond du Lac County borders. The reported sick deer is the first confirmed wild deer CWD-positive case in Winnebago County.
Due to a positive CWD case, a three-year baiting and feeding ban in Winnebago County and a two-year baiting and feeding ban in Waushara, Green Lake and Fond du Lac counties has been enacted as required by state law.
Baiting or feeding deer encourages the deer to congregate unnaturally around a shared food source where CWD can spread by infected deer leaving behind infectious prions in their saliva, blood, feces and urine.
The DNR and the Winnebago Coutny Deer Advisory Council will be hosting a public meeting on Tuesday, April 25 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Omro Town Hallto provide information about CWD in Wisconsin and options for CWD testing efforts and disease surveillance.
CWD is a fatal, infectious nervous system disease of deer, moose, elk and reindeer/caribou. It belongs to the family of diseases known as TSEs or prion diseases. The DNR began monitoring the state's wild white-tailed deer population for CWD in 1999 with the first positive case found in 2002.
More general information about CWD can be found by clicking HERE.
