DNR Investigating CWD Case in Wild Deer Harvested South Of Bemidji

(KDLM/MNN) – The Minnesota DNR continues to investigate the first case of chronic wasting disease in a wild deer in the Bemidji area. Wildlife health supervisor Michelle Carstensen says there was a positive CWD deer farm in Beltrami County in 2021 – but the infected buck was not taken near that farm.

“Trying to understand how it got there and relating this to other prion sources it’s still not really understood,” said Carstensen. “It is an adult male they can range quite far, particularly during the rut, but we don’t really know where this deer came from or how it was exposed to CWD at this point in time.”

Carstensen says there was also an illegal deer dumpsite with signs of disease that was exposed to wild deer. The D-N-R has put out more self-service stations in the Bemidji area for hunters to drop off deer samples.

The DNR says they tested 1,800 samples last fall but didn’t detect any CWD.

“That tells us there isn’t any concerning disease that’s been sparked there for some time and festering or you would have picked it up,” adds Carstensen. “We went back for year two and we collected over 12 hundred samples, and we have almost all the results back, just pending a few and we only have this one suspect.”