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Four more captive elk test positive for wasting disease
6/14/02
DENVER (AP) - Four of 1,343 captive elk killed this spring in Colorado have tested positive for chronic wasting disease, and they most likely caught it from wild animals, agriculture officials said.
"It's an extremely low percentage," Linh Troung, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Agriculture, said Thursday. "But we can't be sure all the animals that have ever tested positive were infected by wildlife."
The diseased elk came from two ranches located in an area along the northeastern Front Range, Troung said.
Agriculture officials weren't sure when the elk were infected. Five other elk from the two infected ranches had been shipped to facilities in state, and ones in Minnesota, Nebraska and Missouri. Troung said the states were being notified.
Chronic wasting disease is in the same family as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease. The contagious illness eats holes in an animal's brain, and the animal becomes emaciated and dies.
The disease has been present in the wild for decades in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. It spread through some of the state's elk ranches last year after an operation with some infected animals shipped elk around the state.
Elk on 27 ranches were killed this spring after at least 20 infected elk were found on a northeastern Colorado ranch. Some of the animals were shipped to other ranches in the state.
In the past 10 years, chronic wasting disease has also been found in Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin and in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada.
6/14/02
DENVER (AP) - Four of 1,343 captive elk killed this spring in Colorado have tested positive for chronic wasting disease, and they most likely caught it from wild animals, agriculture officials said.
"It's an extremely low percentage," Linh Troung, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Agriculture, said Thursday. "But we can't be sure all the animals that have ever tested positive were infected by wildlife."
The diseased elk came from two ranches located in an area along the northeastern Front Range, Troung said.
Agriculture officials weren't sure when the elk were infected. Five other elk from the two infected ranches had been shipped to facilities in state, and ones in Minnesota, Nebraska and Missouri. Troung said the states were being notified.
Chronic wasting disease is in the same family as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease. The contagious illness eats holes in an animal's brain, and the animal becomes emaciated and dies.
The disease has been present in the wild for decades in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. It spread through some of the state's elk ranches last year after an operation with some infected animals shipped elk around the state.
Elk on 27 ranches were killed this spring after at least 20 infected elk were found on a northeastern Colorado ranch. Some of the animals were shipped to other ranches in the state.
In the past 10 years, chronic wasting disease has also been found in Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin and in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada.
