TODD RICHMOND Associated Press writer | Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:00 am
MADISON, Wis. - State wildlife officials fighting to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease told lawmakers Wednesday they must stretch a statewide deer baiting and feeding ban into the winter.
Department of Natural Resources wildlife management director Tom Hauge told two legislative committees the same thing the agency has said for months: the ban prevents deer from congregating and makes animal-to-animal transmission more difficult.
"We consider the whole state herd at risk," Hauge said. "CWD doesn't stop at the corner of a yard. It doesn't stop at the county border."
But Rep. Mary Williams, R-Medford, a member of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, said the DNR doesn't know enough about how the disease is transmitted to impose a ban that has enraged landowners and wildlife watchers.
"Are you just so gung-ho over stopping baiting and feeding you put blinders on and aren't looking at anything else?" she said.
Chronic wasting disease, prevalent in Colorado and other Western states, attacks a deer's brain and eventually kills the animal.
The disease was discovered in Wisconsin in the wild herd near Mount Horeb in February 2002, the first time it had been found east of the Mississippi River. News of the disease sent the state's tradition-laden, $1 billion hunting industry into an uproar.
The DNR adopted a set of emergency rules that imposed a statewide ban on baiting and feeding and created a so-called eradication zone southwest of Mount Horeb. The DNR wants to kill as many deer as possible in the zone to wipe out the disease.
So far, 207 wild deer in Wisconsin have tested positive for CWD, almost all in the eradication zone, Hauge noted. Six of the diseased deer were outside the eradication zone but inside a so-called management zone nearby.
But landowners say the agency doesn't know enough about the disease to justify killing all the deer in southwestern Wisconsin and just wants to exert more control over deer management.
The baiting and feeding ban has been even more contentious. Northern Wisconsin landowners, feed sellers and wildlife watchers insist they should be allowed to bait and feed since the disease hasn't been found there.
The temporary baiting and feeding ban expired April 30. The Natural Resources Board has since voted to enact a new set of rules to replace the old package, including reinstating the baiting and feeding ban in September until June 2004 and enlarging the eradication zone from 411 square miles to 874.
The package needs approval by both the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee and the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources approve it. The committees weren't scheduled to vote Wednesday.