Michael Eckert

Times Herald

It is going to be more difficult this time, Minnesota.

Minnesota is the only state that has ever contained a chronic wasting disease outbreak. After detecting the disease in a single wild deer in 2010, the state implemented an aggressive herd-thinning strategy and the disease was not heard from again.

Until now. Two bucks taken this fall in southeast Minnesota, near the town of Lanesboro, tested positive for the always-fatal brain-wasting disease. Minnesota tests for CWD because its neighbors in Iowa and Wisconsin haven't been nearly as successful in containing the disease.

Minnesota wildlife officials say they will implement the same strategies that worked last time. They will cut deer numbers in the area with unlimited free deer tags for landowners, additional hunting seasons, and contracting with sharpshooters. They will ban feeding and impose a strict quarantine on deer harvested from the area.

Interestingly, they will also drop antler point restrictions in the affected area to make it more likely that hunters will shoot every deer they see.

Minnesota's strategy has just one strike against it: Wisconsin.

America's Dairyland detected its first CWD-infected wild deer in 2001 in the south-central part of the state, in Dane County, home of Madison, and the state capital.

Wisconsin adopted the same strategy everyone does. Aggressive herd reduction efforts, baiting bans and other rules to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease and maybe pull off a Minnesota miracle and wipe it out completely. That was the plan for a while, at least.

It was not universally popular. Hunting groups short-sightedly didn't like the idea of amputating a big part of the deer herd to save the rest of it, the huge captive-deer industry hired lobbyists, animal rights groups made noise, as did farm interests.

Scott Walker got elected governor. And the state of Wisconsin decided it didn't care about CWD any more. The state's CWD policy since about 2010 has been let's see how this turns out.

Not well so far. The disease has now been detected in 43 of Wisconsin's 72 counties — but might be in others, as well, because the state is testing only a fraction of the deer it was examining a decade ago. CWD-infected counties include ones near Lanesboro, Minnesota.

It has not been confirmed in Florence or Marinette counties, but have in Forest and Vilas counties. I mention them because they border the Upper Peninsula. In 2003, the Michigan DNR banned baiting in Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson and Menominee counties in response to Wisconsin's problem 260 miles away in Dane County.

It has since rescinded the baiting ban.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's latest test results found 6.1 percent of tested deer infected with the disease, four times the rate before the Walker administration took office. In Dane County, where it started, it infects one in four bucks and one in 10 does. In neighboring Iowa County, almost half of bucks and a quarter of does are infected.

CWD is always fatal. Infected deer typically die within 18 months of contracting the disease.

Contact Michael Eckert at meckert@gannett.com, (810) 989-6264, on Facebook @michaeleckert or on Twitter @michaeleckert.