Farmers in Minnesota Farm are Under Agreement to Contain Deer Disease – WCCO

ST. Paul, Minnesota (AP) – A farm in central Minnesota where deer were found infected with a deadly brain disease was closed and the US Department of Agriculture compensated the owner for the euthanasia of his entire flock.

The Minnesota Animal Health Council announced Wednesday that captive deer had been killed at a Crow Wing County farmhouse in an effort to prevent the chronic disease from wasting from spreading to wild deer in the area, reported the Star Tribune. The board did not disclose how many Trophy Woods Ranch trophies had been paid in Merrifield or how many deer had been euthanized.

All carcasses of the hunting farm paid for hunting will be tested for the disease, according to the jury.

Chronic wasting disease was not detected in wild deer in central or northern Minnesota until February, when state officials announced that a wasted deer found near the Merrifield farm had been tested positive at death.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has been informed for the first time that the disease could harbor the disease in 2016. Since then, state officials have tested more than 8,600 deer caught by hunters in an area around of the farm.

At least seven deer in captivity on the farm have been confirmed to be infected with the disease since 2016.

The USDA, which has negotiated and funded the agreement, will work with the state's animal health regulatory board to implement a closed farm management plan because prions to the origin of the disease remain in the soil.

The disease, which is transmitted by contact with deer deer, has been found concentrated in other parts of the state, such as southeast Minnesota. The ministry authorized special deer hunts in December to limit the spread of chronic debilitating disease in the region.

(© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press Inc. All rights reserved This document may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.)