Contact: Michele Woodford, DNR Area Wildlife Supervisor
Michele.Woodford@wisconsin.gov or 715-215-2513
DNR Confirms CWD In Wild Deer Harvested In Langlade County
Baiting and Feeding Bans Renewed, Public Meeting Set
MADISON, Wis. –The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) confirms a wild deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Langlade County in the town of Wolf River. This positive is also within 10 miles of the Menominee Reservation, Menominee County and Oconto County borders.
The deer was a hunter-harvested 1-year-old buck and is the first confirmed wild deer CWD-positive detected in Langlade County.
As required by state law, the DNR 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.
The recent detection of CWD in Langlade County will renew a 3-year baiting and feeding ban in the county, as well as a 2-year baiting and feeding ban in Menominee County. Oconto County is also within 10 miles of the harvest location but is already under a three-year baiting and feeding ban due to positive CWD detections within the county.
Because the deer was harvested in close proximity to the Menominee Reservation, the Menominee Tribal Government has its own baiting ban within the exterior boundaries of the Reservation. The DNR is cooperating and working in concert with the tribal government regarding baiting and feeding bans in this area.
Baiting or feeding deer encourages them to congregate unnaturally around a shared food source where sick deer can spread CWD through direct contact with healthy deer or by leaving behind infectious prions in their saliva, blood, feces and urine.
More information regarding baiting and feeding regulations is available on the DNR webpage.
The DNR and the Langlade County Deer Advisory Council will be hosting a public meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The meeting will be held at:
White Lake High School
(East entrance to the old gym)
405 Bissell St. White Lake, WI 54491
DNR staff will provide information about CWD in Wisconsin, local CWD testing efforts and disease surveillance options being considered.
The DNR asks local landowners and hunters to help assess the extent of CWD in southeastern Langlade County by applying for a surveillance permit. Landowners inside the CWD surveillance area (see the map below) may be eligible for a CWD surveillance permit that authorizes harvesting adult deer.
Surveillance permits are property-specific and are available on select private land within the CWD surveillance area. The permits are free to those with a valid deer hunting license, and landowners may authorize other individuals to harvest deer under the authority of their permit. Deer harvested using a surveillance permit must be tested for CWD.
Interested landowners located within the identified surveillance area should contact Zack Zuleger at Zack.Zuleger@wisconsin.gov or 715-401-2871. Be sure to have your Go Wild Customer ID ready.
CWD is a fatal, infectious nervous system disease of deer, moose, elk and reindeer/caribou. It belongs to the family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) or prion diseases. The Wisconsin DNR began monitoring the state's wild white-tailed deer population for CWD in 1999. The first positives were found in 2002.
