CHEYENNE - Both bad and good news lurked in the first statewide chronic wasting disease survey released last week by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The bad news: CWD is slowly spreading throughout Wyoming.

The good news: It hasn't reached any of the state's winter feedgrounds. Yet.

But the creep of the disease northward and westward from its endemic roots in the southeast of the state have wildlife officials on edge. There will come a day in the not-too-distant future when the state will need a management and eradication effort for the disease.

"We've formed a CWD subcommittee to analyze and develop some management actions if and when CWD reaches the feedgrounds in western Wyoming," Wildlife Veterinary Research Services Supervisor Terry Kreeger told Game and Fish Commissioners at a meeting Feb. 13.

"There's a fairly large interest to the public if that happens … and we need to have some answers for them when it comes up," Kreeger said.

Biologists know diseases spread more quickly on feedgrounds. They have learned that by studying the presence of diseases that are already there, such as brucellosis. About 13,000 elk feed each winter on the 22 state-maintained feedgrounds, most of which are in northwest Wyoming. Lured by easy food, the elk pack together at the feedgrounds more tightly than they do when browsing naturally. The feedgrounds are used to keep elk from eating forage and feed that ranchers in the area need for livestock.

Game and Fish managers fear once elk test positive for CWD in the feedgrounds, the disease could more easily spread through elk populations in the region. Unlike brucellosis, CWD is always fatal in the elk and mule deer it infects.

The department conducted its first-ever statewide surveillance for CWD in 2003, said Gregg Arthur, Game and Fish deputy director of internal operations.

He said a total of 6,025 deer and elk samples were analyzed during the fall hunting season. Of those, 153 mule deer, 13 white-tailed deer and 11 elk tested positive for CWD, for a total of 177 infected animals killed by hunters statewide.

Samples were collected at check stations and meat processing plants from all of the agency's seven regions. The use of a new sampling machine that checked lymph nodes, instead of brain samples, greatly speeded up testing efforts, Arthur said.

CWD is a neurological disorder caused by a protein fragment, according to research. Before they die, deer with the disease become weak, lose weight, drink great amounts of water and seem unafraid of humans.

The agency previously only surveyed for CWD in the southeast quarter of the state. A much smaller sample of CWD in 2002 revealed 105 mule deer and five elk with the disease.

Kreeger told commissioners the survey showed CWD in "new areas" including the Big Horn Basin near Worland, in northeast Wyoming around Moorcroft, and in the Sierra Madres near Baggs.

"The good news is nothing really showed up around the southern corridor … it doesn't seem to be coming out of Colorado (into western Wyoming)," he said.

"The gradual upward trend (of new cases) … is very closely matching the models developed, and we do see an increase in the prevalence," Kreeger said. "Research, research, research. That's how we're going to find the answers to this."

He said recent studies have revealed two items of note: Male mule deer seem to get the disease much more frequently than females; and entire, intact carcasses with CWD left in the wild will spread the disease.