COUNTDOWN: THE YEAR’S MAJOR WINONA NEWS
No. 14: infected deer herd
It’s called CWD, short for “chronic wasting disease.” It invaded southeast Minnesota from Wisconsin in 2018 and spread like a plague through deer herds. The first case was in Houston County, but cases soon showed up in Fillmore and Winona counties. In 2020 the disease spread all the way to southern reaches of the Twin Cities. The state Natural Resources Department took steps to contain the scourge. These included additional 2020 hunting seasons to reduce the deer herd. The DNR, however, found itself between a rock and a hard place. There was therapid CWD and also human COVID. The agency abandoned requiring hunters to take their deer varvasyes to counting stations for CWD checks. Why? To reduce human interaction that could spread COVID among hunters at the stations. So how extensive is CWD infection? The department’s tracking is less precise than ever.
Deer Zombie Disease. As CWD brain-addling disease also is known.