Kevin Murphy, Leader Correspondent
The first deer in Shawano County to test positive for chronic wasting disease was shot last month at Comet Creek Whitetails hunting ranch near Tigerton, state officials said Tuesday.
The ranch, which has locations in Shawano and Waupaca counties, has been quarantined.
A call to Brant W. Schuelke, Comet Creek’s registered agent, for comment was not returned before the Leader’s deadline.
The 3-year-old buck was one of about 245 deer reported to be on the 481-acre property, according to a news release from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
The DATCP said the buck was born on a Wilderness Game Farm Inc. breeding facility in Rosholt in May 2014 and taken in September 2015 to Comet Creek. Comet Creek and the Wilderness Game Farm are owned by the same people.
The disease was discovered because regulations require testing of farm-raised deer and elk when they die or are killed.
After the deer was taken, samples were obtained from the animal and tested in-state. The results were confirmed at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.
State Veterinarian Dr. Paul McGraw quarantined the Comet Creek herd and the breeding facility in Waupaca County on Tuesday but allowed hunting to continue at Comet Creek because properly handled dead animals leaving the premises do not pose a disease risk.
“We already know the disease is there and the deer don’t leave alive anyway,” Raechelle A. Belli, a DATCP spokesperson, stated in an email to a reporter. “Hunters are notified prior to their hunt that the ranch has had a positive deer finding.”
DATCP’s Animal Health Division will investigate the animal’s history and trace movements of deer onto and off the property to determine whether other herds might have been exposed to the positive deer.
While DATCP has closed some deer farms where CWD has been it found, closure is not an automatic response, Belli stated.
“We evaluate every situation on a case-by-case basis taking into account risk factors and whether it is reasonable to allow farms to continue hunts,” she noted. “The property is already quarantined and deer can only be moved from the breeding farm to the hunting ranch. They will only leave the hunting ranch dead.”
There were 387 deer farms registered with the state in 2016, including 65 hunting ranches.
Comet Creek Whitetails is the 16th deer farm where chronic wasting disease has been found since 2001; 187 deer have tested positive for CWD on deer farms in the state.
The state has destroyed or depopulated 11 deer herds as a result of positive CWD tests, Belli stated.
CWD has been found in wild deer in 19 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties since first being discovered in Dane County in 2002, according to the Department of Natural Resources.