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From: TSS ()
News Release For Release: June 30, 2006 Contact(s): Alan Crossley, CWD Project Leader, Fitchburg: 608-275-3242 Devil’s Lake The two to three year-old doe was shot by park staff on April 24 on the north side of Devil’s Lake. The animal was targeted because of its emaciated condition, head hanging low and easy approachability, all visible indicators of the disease’s late stages. Devil’s Lake State Park is located in the CWD Herd Reduction Zone (HRZ), an area covering all or part of 19 counties which serves as a buffer between the smaller CWD Eradication Zone (DEZ) and the rest of the state. The deer was shot about four miles north of the DEZ border and is the seventh CWD positive deer found in Sauk County. The closest CWD positive deer to the Devil’s Lake animal were two deer shot last fall on the Columbia County side of the Wisconsin River near Merrimac, about five miles away. “We are grateful that the park’s staff recognized this deer as suspect for CWD and removed it from the landscape. Checking deer for CWD is a very important part of our disease surveillance program,” noted Alan Crossley, CWD project leader based at Fitchburg. “I can’t overemphasize the importance of people reporting sick looking deer to the department. If you see a sickly looking deer while hunting, please harvest the deer and take it to a DNR office for CWD sampling. You will be issued a replacement tag so you can continue hunting for a deer to keep.” “If you sight a sickly looking deer and you are not a hunter, or it is outside of the regular deer hunting season, you should contact your local DNR conservation warden or wildlife biologist. They may authorize you to kill the suspect animal or if you aren’t a hunter, they may come out and kill the animal,” added Mr. Crossley. Since 2002, over 100,000 wild white-tailed deer have been tested statewide for CWD (6,719 from Sauk County), with 651 testing positive and all but 19 detected in the DEZ, the remainder in the HRZ. The western DEZ covers 1280 square miles and encompasses much of Iowa County, western Dane County, southern Sauk County and small sections of Columbia, Green, Lafayette and Richland Counties. Persons interested in the latest information on CWD in Wisconsin can visit the DNR Web site at: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/whealth/issues/CWD/index.htm The following counties are in the South Central Region: Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Grant, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Lafayette, Richland, Rock, Sauk. The public affairs manager for the DNR South Central Region is: Greg Matthews: phone - (608) 275-3317. http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/news/rbnews/BreakingNews_Lookup.asp?id=110 TSS
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