Wildlife and Parks testing for chronic wasting disease

South-central Kansas deer hunters are being asked to help track the spread of chronic wasting disease across the state. Volunteers can take their deer to several locations in the region, where taxidermists or meat processors can remove the tissue needed to have the buck or doe tested for the disease. The process is free for the hunters, and they will be notified of the test results.

Shane Hesting, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism wildlife disease coordinator, said the agency annually samples deer from one of five areas within Kansas. This season, a federal grant will also allow them to sample deer from southwest Kansas. Hesting is hoping for more than 500 samples from south-central Kansas to get an accurate sample size.

CWD is fatal to any member of the deer family once it is contracted. It is spread from animal to animal. The disease has never been diagnosed in livestock or humans, though it closely resembles mad cow disease.

First diagnosed near the Colorado-Wyoming border in the 1960s, CWD has spread widely over the past 15 years. Transporting infected, captive animals has led to some of the spread. Biologists think hunters taking the bones and brains from animals shot in CWD areas back home has also helped spread the disease to places as far east as New York.

Kansas’ first case was in a captive elk, brought in from a Rocky Mountain facility, in 2001. Annual testing began with wild deer in western Kansas in 1996. The state’s first CWD case in a wild deer was in 2005 in Cheyenne County, in northwest Kansas.

Hesting said 63 deer have tested positive for the disease from within 17 Kansas counties. Stafford County is the farthest east and south to have had an infected deer diagnosed. More than 24,000 Kansas deer have been tested since 1996.

Hesting said the survey prefers deer at least 2 1/2 years old. Gender or species makes no difference. Hunters from any region can pay $23 to get their deer tested, too.

Go to ksoutdoors.com for more information about sampling locations.

This story was originally published November 28, 2014 at 12:42 PM with the headline "Wildlife and Parks testing for chronic wasting disease."