WASHINGTON (AP) - Wyoming and other states are diverting funds and juggling personnel to monitor chronic wasting disease and need more money from the federal government, experts told Congress.

The Bush administration devoted $18.5 million to combat the fatal brain malady in fiscal year 2004 - about the same amount as states collectively doled out.

But while $23.1 million has been requested for fiscal year 2005, some senators are worried just $4.2 million of that will go toward wasting disease monitoring and research.

"It just seems to me that $4.2 million is kind of meager considering the implications on wildlife," Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said.

Tom Thorne, a veterinarian and wildlife disease consultant for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that chronic wasting disease is drawing department personnel away from other priorities.

"It's a big area of concern," he said. "Probably a multitude of programs are suffering. CWD monitoring is very manpower-intensive. They had to call on game wardens and hatchery personnel and basically everyone to pitch in."

Some states are also siphoning money away from other programs to combat the disease, Montana Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance project leader Gary Wolfe said.

"The CWD Alliance is particularly concerned that this redirection of limited wildlife agency funds is not adequate to address the CWD issue, and will have negative impacts on other important wildlife management and conservation programs," he said.

First identified in parts of Colorado and Wyoming, chronic wasting disease attacks the brains of infected animals, causing them to display abnormal behavior and eventually become emaciated and die. There is no evidence the disease can harm people.

Researchers have yet to discover how it is spread.

The malady has been found in wild deer or elk in Wyoming, Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin. It has also been found in captive herds in Montana and several other states.

Chronic wasting disease has yet to be found in Idaho, but biologists and hunters are increasingly concerned because the fatal disease in deer and elk is spreading erratically.

---- On the Net:

Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance: http://www.cwd-info.org

AP-WS-04-07-04 1019EDT