Chronic wasting disease found in wild New York deer for first time in decades

Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger. Chronic wasting disease, a fatal illness in deer, moose and elk, has been discovered in a wild New York doe for the first time in decades. The disorder, which stems from defective proteins called prions, has never been spotted in Vermont, and with northern New York’s deer season in full swing, officials want to keep it that way. Following the discovery of the infected animal, the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife issued a statement Tuesday reminding hunters to follow policies against bringing deer meat without proper processing into Vermont from areas where the disease has been observed. Those include New York, Pennsylvania and Québec, among other states and provinces. “It’s a really funky kind of disease,” Nick Fortin, the department’s lead deer biologist, said in an interview. It’s in the same class of disorder as the infamous “mad cow” disease, he said, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

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