You can do your part to stop the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease this season by having your deer tested, particularly if it has shown signs of the disease.
Use this link to find a registration station in your hunting area: dnr.wi.gov/wmcwd/RegStation/Search
All the testing stations in Shawano, Oconto and Waupaca counties are self-service kiosks. You must have completed your electronic registration of your deer prior to bringing in your samples (carcass or head that includes a hand-width length of neck). If you are having your buck’s head mounted, there are still ways to have the animal tested. Heads can be brought in up to five days after harvest, if kept cool (longer if frozen).
This page offers more details: dnr.wi.gov/topic/wildlifehabitat/registersample.html
Tami Ryan, the Wisconsin DNR’s Wildlife Health Section Chief, and Erin Larson, DNR’s Wildlife Health Data Coordinator, offered additional information:
Deer generally will not show signs of CWD (stumbling, thinness, activity and lack of fear in daytime, etc.) until 18 months or so. Those who process their own deer should dispose of carcasses in their home garbage, rather than leaving them in the woods to allow the infected prions to spread the disease.
It takes about two weeks for a hunter to get the results of testing.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization all recommend that CWD-positive meat not be consumed, although there has never been a known case of CWD being transmitted to humans. Testing in Canada with monkeys did show the disease could be passed to the primates by eating contaminated meat and also injecting the disease into brain tissue.
— Ross Bielema, correspondent
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