Public invited to a March 19 discussion at Convention Center
State wildlife officials and representatives of other agencies will meet with the public March 19 in Vicksburg to discuss the latest information related to Mississippi’s first case of Chronic Wasting Disease.
The Mississippi Wildlife Fisheries and Parks announced Friday that it will host its second public meeting at the Vicksburg Convention Center beginning at 6:30 p.m. to discuss CWD and its response plan.
On Feb. 9, MDWFP was notified that a deer found dead at a hunting club near Steel Bayou in Issaquena County on Jan. 25 tested positive for CWD. A laboratory in Iowa, which specializes in and is certified in the disease, conducted the test.
The same lab conducted tests on 64 other deer collected by the MDWFP in the 5-mile containment zone around where the diseased deer was recovered, and earlier this week those tests were all returned as negative.
MDWFP is now in the process of taking another 200 deer, the agency announced, from the 5-mile zone and the 10-mile high-risk zone.
MDWFP also announced recently that a test of the dead animal found its DNA was consistent with that of free-range deer in the area.
CWD is caused by a malformed protein, or prion, and is known to affect white-tailed deer, and other cervids like elk, moose, mule deer and reindeer. There is no known treatment for the disease, which is 100 percent fatal.
There is also no live-animal test for CWD.
