Cases of fatal deer disease grow

The number of Texas deer with confirmed chronic wasting disease has apparently doubled. The Texas Animal Health Commission had been monitoring a deer ranch in Medina County and testing found 13 new cases of the fatal disease at the captive breeding facility. “A three-and-a-half year old doe tested positive in April, and so the facility was quarantined and additional testing was done and more CWD was found,” Tom Harvey, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman, said yesterday. Chronic wasting disease is a highly contagious fatal disease that strikes down hoofed ungulates like deer, moose and elk. It has been found in 21 states and four Canadian provinces, and wildlife officials and hunter advocacy groups say transporting pen-raised deer puts the state’s wild deer herd and the $2.2 billion Texas deer hunters spend annually at risk. Deer ranchers say their growing industry is worth $1 billion annually, a crucial economic boon for rural areas of Texas. They insist they have measures in place to minimize the possibility of CWD spreading to wild deer populations. The new CWD cases now make 25 deer found to be infected in Texas. The first case was discovered in a wild mule deer near the New Mexico border in 2012, and another wild mule deer with CWD was diagnosed in Hartley County this year. The other 23 cases involve pen-raised deer...more