Taxpayers have spent 41 million dollars on an unsuccessful effort to fight chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin deer herd

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Taxpayers have spent 41-million-dollars on an unsuccessful effort to fight chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin’s deer herd.

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism came up with that figure – and it includes both state and federal funds spent over the last seven years. C-W-D was first found in southwest Wisconsin in 2002. And according to the center, the infection rate in adult bucks grew from 10 percent of the herd in 2007 to 15 percent last year in western Dane and eastern Iowa counties.

The center also reported that the population goal for that zone was 1,800 – but it was estimated at 11,500 earlier this year. The head of the DNR’s program against chronic wasting disease, Davin Lopez, admits his agency has not met key goals for reducing the infection rate and the deer herd in the affected spot in southwest Wisconsin. And the report said the agency made its best progress when goals were relaxed and made easier to achieve.

Lopez says the DNR is doing all it can, but the agency can’t do it all themselves – and they need hunters to step up and do more. Ed Harvey, chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress which represents hunters, says there’s no question that more needs to be done to fight CWD.

Tags: chronic waste disease, deer herd, news, wisconsin, outdoors