- Joined
- Mar 11, 2001
- Messages
- 70,011
- Reaction score
- 1,007
Colorado again offers testing for wasting disease
October 19, 2004
DENVER (AP) -- The Colorado Division of Wildlife is continuing efforts to track a fatal brain disease that attacks deer and elk by offering testing for hunters who want to check their animals.
Hunters can have the heads of their deer and elk tested for chronic wasting disease at 26 Division of Wildlife offices and by veterinarians at 30 sites across the state.
All deer and elk testing is voluntary and costs $15 per animal. The cost, which includes shipping, is $22 for hunters who have the testing done by veterinarians.
Moose testing is mandatory and is free if hunters take the head to a Division of Wildlife site. The disease has never been found in wild moose.
The division began offering testing to hunters in 2002 after chronic wasting disease was found for the first time in western Colorado.
The ailment had been present in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming for decades. News of its discovery near Craig and in Wisconsin, the first known cases east of the Mississippi River, prompted culling of herds and testing in both states.
Chronic wasting disease has also been found in wild and captive deer and elk in Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and two Canadian provinces.
Chronic wasting disease is in the same family as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, which has been tied to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
Scientists say there is no evidence that chronic wasting disease can be transmitted to humans and livestock, but stress more research is needed.
Hunters are advised to wear gloves when handling a carcass and to cut the meat from the bone.
On the Net:
Colorado Division of Wildlife: http://wildlife.state.co.us
October 19, 2004
DENVER (AP) -- The Colorado Division of Wildlife is continuing efforts to track a fatal brain disease that attacks deer and elk by offering testing for hunters who want to check their animals.
Hunters can have the heads of their deer and elk tested for chronic wasting disease at 26 Division of Wildlife offices and by veterinarians at 30 sites across the state.
All deer and elk testing is voluntary and costs $15 per animal. The cost, which includes shipping, is $22 for hunters who have the testing done by veterinarians.
Moose testing is mandatory and is free if hunters take the head to a Division of Wildlife site. The disease has never been found in wild moose.
The division began offering testing to hunters in 2002 after chronic wasting disease was found for the first time in western Colorado.
The ailment had been present in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming for decades. News of its discovery near Craig and in Wisconsin, the first known cases east of the Mississippi River, prompted culling of herds and testing in both states.
Chronic wasting disease has also been found in wild and captive deer and elk in Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and two Canadian provinces.
Chronic wasting disease is in the same family as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, which has been tied to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
Scientists say there is no evidence that chronic wasting disease can be transmitted to humans and livestock, but stress more research is needed.
Hunters are advised to wear gloves when handling a carcass and to cut the meat from the bone.
On the Net:
Colorado Division of Wildlife: http://wildlife.state.co.us
