With the discovery of chronic wasting disease in two deer shot by hunters in Fillmore County during the whitetail season, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) plans to stage a special hunt from December 31 to January 15. The hunt, which will take 900 adult deer to test for the disease, was the instance for a meeting in Preston on Thursday.
Brian Todd reports in the Rochester Post Bulletin story, Hundreds crowd gym in Preston to hear DNR's deer details:
About 800 people crammed into the Fillmore Central High School gym Thursday to hear details from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources on the special deer hunt planned to deal with chronic wasting disease.
Two deer shot near Preston in November were found to be infected with CWD, an always-fatal neurological disorder that is similar to mad-cow disease but isn't known to affect humans.
Robert Lawstuen, who lives about four miles north of Preston, said he attende the meeting to get more details on the DNR's plans for the hunt, which will run from Dec. 31 to Jan. 15. "If it'll help, good," he said of the DNR's plans. "If it's not going to do anything, it's a waste of time. We don't know that yet." . . .
The hunt will reduce the herd in "Deer Permit Area 603, which covers 370 square miles through most of Fillmore County and a small sliver of Olmsted County," by 20 to 25 percent.
While that might seem drastic, Todd notes that CWD in Colorado and Wyoming has reduced the deer populations drastically. Read the entire article at the Post Bulletin.
Photo: A CWD positive deer, via the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
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