Saint Paul, Minn - The Minnesota Board of Animal Health announced the depopulation of all the deer on a Crow Wing County Farm first infected with CWD in 2016. The USDA is providing indemnity to the owner for the animals as part of its overall disease control effort. The Board of Animal Health is coordinating with the USDA to collect tissue samples for CWD testing, and will report results when they become available.

“We anticipate receiving CWD testing results from the USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory within the coming weeks,” said Board of Animal Health Assistant Director, Dr. Linda Glaser. “We’ve already developed a herd plan with the owner on how to handle the property now that the deer are gone. At this point, any CWD positive results do not change our disease response, because we already know the site held CWD positive deer and have been treating it as such.”

This Crow Wing County deer herd was the only CWD positive farm in the state operating under a herd plan with live animals. As of this depopulation, all CWD positive deer farms in the state are empty. Following depopulation, the sites are managed in accordance with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Board of Animal Health-approved herd plan. The Board continues mandatory CWD monitoring in all other farmed cervid herds and has no CWD positive detections as of this release.

CWD is a disease of the deer and elk family caused by an abnormally shaped protein, a prion, which can damage brain and nerve tissue. The disease is most likely transmitted when infected deer and elk shed prions in saliva, feces, urine, and other fluids or tissues. CWD is not known to naturally occur in other animals. The disease is fatal in deer and elk, and there are no known treatments or vaccines. Consuming infected meat is not advised.

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