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10/30/2002
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Article/Press
Release
Final group of Aitkin County farmed
elk test negative for CWD
No positive results found in 17 additional wild deer tested
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
The Minnesota Board of
Animal Health today announced that the final group of nine elk
from an Aitkin County elk herd has tested negative for Chronic
Wasting Disease. These findings mean all 48 elk from the Aitkin
County farm have tested negative.
The Aitkin County herd has
been held under quarantine since Aug. 30, when CWD was detected in
a single adult male elk. The final group of nine elk to be tested
was shipped to the University of Minnesota's Veterinary Diagnostic
Laboratory in St. Paul, where they were euthanized. Veterinarians
took tissue samples from each animal and submitted them to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Veterinary Services
Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, for testing.
Minnesota Board of Animal
Health Executive Director Bill Hartmann said these results are
encouraging.
"To date all testing in
farmed and free-ranging deer in Aitkin County has been negative,"
Hartmann said. "We are encouraged that preliminary results
indicate that CWD has not spread from the single infected animal."
The only confirmed case of
CWD in Minnesota was the single male elk that died on the Aitkin
County farm. State animal health officials decided to euthanize
the entire herd because it is thought that CWD may be transmitted
by animal-to-animal contact and the only way to test an animal for
CWD is to obtain a brain sample.
"Now that all 48 elk in
the Aitkin herd have tested negative, we'll continue our
investigation outside the Aitkin County herd," Hartmann said.
"Discussions are underway with USDA concerning the disposition of
the two quarantined herds that remain in Stearns and Benton
counties."
In addition to the Aitkin
County herd being tested by Board of Animal Health, the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources is testing wild deer culled within
a nine-square-mile area surrounding the farm. So far, 106 deer
killed by DNR sharpshooters, archery hunters, area landowners and
traffic accidents have been submitted for testing. The DNR has
received 17 additional test results from those deer, all of which
were negative. So far, 64 deer from the surveillance area have not
tested positive for CWD.
Permits issued to
landowners who agreed to harvest deer for sampling in the
surveillance area have expired. The DNR will continue to accept
deer killed by firearms and archery deer hunters in permit area
154 for CWD sampling. |
