Wisconsin DNR confirms first case of CWD in wild deer from Pierce County, baiting and feeding bans start May 15

Madison, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources confirmed the first positive test result for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a wild deer in Pierce County. The deer was sick and dispatched in the town of Spring Lake and is within 10 miles of the Dunn and St. Croix county borders.

The deer was a 4-5-year-old doe. This detection will cause the following:

• Pierce County will begin a three-year baiting and feeding ban on May 15, 2024.
• St. Croix County will begin a two-year baiting and feeding ban on May 15, 2024.
• Dunn County will renew the ban already in place.

The DNR and the Pierce County Deer Advisory Council plan to host a public meeting. More details will be provided in the future via a news release and on the DNR’s Hearings and Meetings Calendar. At the meeting, DNR staff will provide information about CWD in Wisconsin and local testing efforts within Pierce County.

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State law requires that the DNR enact a three-year baiting and feeding ban in counties where CWD has been detected, as well as a two-year ban in adjoining counties within 10 miles of a CWD detection. If additional CWD cases are found during the lifetime of a baiting and feeding ban, the ban will renew for an additional two or three years.

Baiting or feeding deer encourages deer from congregating unnaturally around a shared food source, where infected 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 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 DNR began monitoring the state’s wild white-tailed deer population for CWD in 1999. The first positives were found in 2002.

More general information about CWD can be found on the DNR’s CWD webpage.