Friday, March 06, 2009

KANSAS NEWS: More CWD Cases Show Up

Five more Kansas white-tailed deer have been confirmed positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD), bringing to eight the total number of CWD incidents from the 2008 Kansas deer seasons.

The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks is still awaiting final lab results on about 100 more tissue samples from hunter-killed deer during the past deer season, according to Shane Hesting, KDWP wildlife disease coordinator. Tissue samples were collected from hunters around the state during the past deer season, as KDWP continued annual sampling begun in 1996 to help track the occurrence of CWD in the state’s wild deer. More than 10,000 tissue samples have undergone lab analysis since annual sampling began.

All eight deer confirmed as CWD-positive were taken by hunters in northwest Kansas. Of the five additional CWD-positive deer confirmed by KDWP this week, two came from Sheridan County, two from Rawlins County, and one from Cheyenne County.

The five newly-reported incidents are in addition to three Decatur County CWD-positive deer documented in early January by KDWP.

CWD has been detected previously in Kansas. During the 2007 season, three Decatur County whitetails were confirmed as CWD-positive. The first occurrence in a wild Kansas deer was a white-tailed doe killed by a Kansas hunter in 2005 in Cheyenne County.

For the full story see: Infozine.com

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