Utah doe tests positive for wasting disease

Finding a second mule deer in Utah with chronic wasting disease has game officers puzzled, and they determined to step up testing plans this fall.

The deer, a mature doe, was taken from the LaSal Mountains east of Moab.

Three deer were sent to a Logan testing lab in April — two found near the Vernal area where the first case of CWD was found, and the doe.

"When they called and informed me that we had a second positive CWD, I felt for certain it was one of the Vernal deer. I was very surprised to find out it was the doe," said Jim Karpowitz, big game coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. The two deer from the Vernal area tested negative.

The first confirmed case was a buck, shot near the Utah-Colorado border east of Vernal. It was killed in an area called Brush Creek. A brain sample from the deer, tested in Logan and confirmed by a lab in Iowa, carried CWD.

In the latest case, a landowner noticed the doe was acting strangely and notified game officials. When they arrived, the deer was dead. The carcass was picked up and sent to the Logan lab.

"What is puzzling about this case," added Karpowitz, "is there is not another positive case of CWD within 100 air miles. That's just one of the many mysteries of the disease."

In the case of the first deer, the DWR returned and took several deer for testing off winter range. All tested negative.

With the second deer, said Karpowitz, further testing in the area will be left to hunters this fall.

"The difference is the first deer was on winter range, and if we'd waited, deer in the area would have moved off to summer range and it would have been impossible to test," he said. "In this case the doe was on summer range, so it's not a good time for testing."

This past hunting season, game officers sampled 166 deer off the LaSals and all tested negative.

"Considering the extent of our sampling last fall, we believe this is an isolated case or we would have seen other positives by now," he continued. "But we'll do an intensive monitoring program in the area and see if anything turns up."

Last fall, the DWR tested 1,559 deer, and it wasn't until the last batch of 200 samples was tested that the first positive appeared.

This fall, with help from federal grants, the state will expand its testing.