Brian Broom

Clarion Ledger

The news of a single cow elk that tested positive for chronic wasting disease in February seemed to be about as bad as it could get for Arkansas hunters and wildlife officials, but it has gotten worse. Much worse.

Almost 30 tissue samples sent to a lab for testing were confirmed this week to have CWD and bring the total number of cases to 50.

"It's caused a lot of sleepless nights around here," said Cory Gray, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Deer Program coordinator. "We got some late yesterday afternoon. Twenty-seven additional positives were returned from the lab."

The outbreak is the first known in Arkansas and brings the fatal disease even closer to Mississippi's deer herd. Prior to the February discovery, the closest confirmed cases to Mississippi were in Missouri. For now, at least, it seems to be confined to northwest Arkansas, but AGFC officials are testing animals outside the initial focal area of Boone and Newton counties intensively.

"Now that we know it's outside the focal area, we're trying to determine spatial distribution," Gray said. "We're collecting all roadkill and target animals statewide.

"That's where we will get spatial distribution data. It's over 300 samples that have been collected just in the month of March. We're fixing to get in the roadkill business pretty heavily. Fifty percent of our roadkills are coming back positive."

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CWD is is effectively a brain-eating disease caused by contact with malformed, rogue proteins called prions. When an animal such as a deer or elk becomes infected, the prions cause other proteins in the brain to become malformed and die. The animal's death is slow, but inevitable as there is no cure.

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks is monitoring the situation and continuing its CWD sampling program.

"We are sampling anything that looks like a target deer, or one that is exhibiting symptoms," said Chad Dacus, MDWFP Wildlife Bureau director. "Right now, we're not planning on increasing our sampling efforts.

"It (CWD) moves slowly because deer don't migrate. If they find any closer to Mississippi, we'll probably do more in those areas."

Symptoms of the disease in white-tailed deer include weight loss, listlessness, lowering of the head, a blank expression and walking in a set pattern. Any deer showing signs of disease should be reported to MDWFP.

"If people see a deer that exhibits symptoms or signs of any disease they can call us and we'll send someone out," Dacus said.

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Contact Brian Broom at (601) 961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com. Follow The Clarion-Ledger Outdoors on Facebook and @BrianBroom on Twitter.