MADISON, Wis., Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Federal sharpshooters destroyed 118 deer on a southeastern Wisconsin game farm in hopes the kill would prevent the further spread of chronic wasting disease.
The deer belonged to James Hirshboeck and the shootings were the first such action taken in the state. Court documents indicate 140 deer on another farm are to be destroyed around the first of the year although a suit is pending to prevent the slaughter. Deer and elk on a third farm also are targeted even though none of the animals has tested positive for chronic wasting disease.
The heads from the animals killed in this week's shooting will be tested for signs of CWD, which destroys the nervous system and produces spongy pockets in the brain.
Agriculture Department spokeswoman Donna Gilson Friday said the shootings began early Wednesday and the head removal was completed by sunset.
Hirschboeck's herd was condemned after one of the deer on his farm tested positive in September for the disease, which resembles scrapie in sheep, mad cow in cattle and a variant of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans.
"It was kind of weird, watching them as they died," Hirschboeck told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, adding some of the animals were as old as 15 and unlikely to have had the disease.
Forty-four wild deer have tested positive for the disease in a 411-square-mile eradication zone designated by the state in Dane, Iowa and Sauk counties.
Hirschboeck said if his deer test negative for the disease, he plans to resume his business in a year. The state has said it would reimburse him up to $1,500 per deer although he valued some of the animals as high as $30,000.
Chronic wasting disease first was discovered in Colorado in 1967 at a research facility but did not turn up in wild herds until 1981. It first appeared east of the Mississippi River this year, in Wisconsin in February and west of the Continental Divide in November.
The disease also has been found in captive deer populations in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Minnesota in the United States, in Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada, and in wild populations in South Dakota, Nebraska and New Mexico. One infected wild deer believed escaped from a Wisconsin game farm turned up in Illinois.
