In April of this year, the state had its first documented case of a deer mortality due to the disease. North Dakota’s first case surfaced when a mule deer buck tested positive in the southwestern part of the state (Unit 3F2) in 2009. Since first being detected in captive deer in a research facility in Colorado in the 1960’s, and in wild deer in 1981, the spread of CWD now affects 24 states and two Canadian provinces. It causes damage to portions of the brain creating holes in the brain cells and causing a sponge-like appearance.” Although CWD shares certain features with other TSEs, like bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease), scrapie in sheep and goats, and Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, it is a distinct disease apparently affecting only deer, elk and moose. It belongs to a family of diseases known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), or prion diseases. “Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a progressive, fatal disease of the nervous system of white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose. Just in case you’re unfamiliar with CWD, it’s described on the North Dakota Game & Fish website as follows: With no way to cure or inoculate against the disease, it seems the Game & Fish Department is left with little choice but to manage against the spread of it. It’s a relatively new and unpleasant reality for some hunters in North Dakota- the existence and spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).
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