DNR Confirms CWD In Second Wild Deer In Wood County

MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) confirms a wild deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Wood County in the town of Rudolph. The deer was a 3-year-old doe, reported sick and dispatched by local department staff.

This is the second confirmed CWD-positive wild deer detected in Wood County. This positive is also within 10 miles of the Portage County border.

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.

This recent detection of CWD in Wood County will renew a 3-year baiting and feeding ban in the county. Portage County is also within 10 miles of the harvest location but is already under a longer three-year baiting and feeding ban due to positive CWD detections within the county.

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’s Baiting and Feeding Regulations webpage.

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.