More than 400 people showed up to a meeting in Bonifay this week to learn more about Chronic Wasting Disease, which was recently found in a deer in Holmes County.
The crowd included hunters, farmers, private landowners, taxidermists, meat processors, wildlife rehabilitators and other interested parties.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed the disease in mid-June in a road-killed 4.5-year-old female white-tailed deer in Holmes County sampled during routine surveillance activities.
Chronic wasting disease is a contagious, neurological disease that is always fatal in deer but does not seem to affect people.
Signs of the disease can include extreme weight loss and abnormal behaviors such as listlessness, lowering of the head, inattentiveness toward people, walking in circles, staggering and standing with a wide stance.
Controlling the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease is difficult once it becomes established in a natural population; it can be transmitted directly - from animal to animal - or indirectly from the environment.
The FWC takes Chronic wasting disease very seriously and have been monitoring free-ranging deer since 2002 to detect the disease.
During that time, they have tested nearly 17,500 hunter-killed, road-killed and sick or diseased deer for CWD.
The FWC is asking anyone who sees a sick, abnormally thin deer or finds a deer dead from unknown causes to call the CWD hotline, 866-CWD-WATCH (866-293-9282) and report the animal’s location.
The crowd included hunters, farmers, private landowners, taxidermists, meat processors, wildlife rehabilitators and other interested parties.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed the disease in mid-June in a road-killed 4.5-year-old female white-tailed deer in Holmes County sampled during routine surveillance activities.
Chronic wasting disease is a contagious, neurological disease that is always fatal in deer but does not seem to affect people.
Signs of the disease can include extreme weight loss and abnormal behaviors such as listlessness, lowering of the head, inattentiveness toward people, walking in circles, staggering and standing with a wide stance.
Controlling the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease is difficult once it becomes established in a natural population; it can be transmitted directly - from animal to animal - or indirectly from the environment.
The FWC takes Chronic wasting disease very seriously and have been monitoring free-ranging deer since 2002 to detect the disease.
During that time, they have tested nearly 17,500 hunter-killed, road-killed and sick or diseased deer for CWD.
The FWC is asking anyone who sees a sick, abnormally thin deer or finds a deer dead from unknown causes to call the CWD hotline, 866-CWD-WATCH (866-293-9282) and report the animal’s location.
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