- A cow elk killed Sept. 7 northeast of Hayden has tested
positive for chronic wasting disease.
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- This is the first time a free-roaming elk on the Western
Slope has tested positive for the always-fatal disease.
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- The elk was killed by a Colorado Division of Wildlife
employee after the animal was seen with a broken jaw.
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- "After the elk was killed, its head was submitted
for testing for chronic wasting disease as a matter of record," said
DOW spokesman Todd Malmsbury. "This weekend, the report came back
positive."
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- The animal was killed in game management unit 441, about
20 miles north of where 10 mule deer were found this spring to be infected
with chronic wast- ing disease. Four of the deer were killed inside the
Motherwell Ranch, a captive elk facility along the Williams Fork River.
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- The other six CWD-positive deer were killed in a five-mile
radius of the ranch during a culling operation by the DOW aimed at finding
how many animals might be carrying the disease.
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- A total of 134 elk and 285 deer were killed in the operation.
No other infected animals were found.
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- The DOW has an aggressive culling program for CWD-infected
animals in 19 game-management units in northeast Colorado. Malmsbury said
no such action is planned for the area where the elk was killed.
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- "With hunting season just gearing up and so many
hunters in the woods, we are encouraging them to submit their animals for
testing," he said.
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- Malmsbury said a management decision will be made this
fall, after it's determined how many, if any, more wild animals turn up
with chronic wasting disease.
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- "So far, the only place we've found CWD is in Routt
County," Malmsbury said.
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- Officials from the Colorado Department of Agriculture,
which oversees game farms, were unable to say if any domestic wildlife
facilities were in the area where the elk was killed.
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- Since 1996, the DOW has tested more than 2,000 elk from
around the Western Slope. Until this week, none of them tested positive
for CWD.
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- Deer and elk hunters in western Colorado wanting their
harvest tested for chronic wasting disease have several options, including
nine collection sites scattered across the Western Slope.
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- The sample-collection locations are Rangely, Craig,
Grand Junction, Meeker, Steamboat Springs, Glenwood Springs, Gunnison,
Montrose and Durango.
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- Eleven more sampling sites are on the Front Range.
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- For more information on chronic wasting disease, check
the division's Web site at wildlife.state.co.us.
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- http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/newsfd/auto/
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