Early tests have turned up no cases of “Chronic Wasting Disease” or C-W-D in Iowa’s deer population. C-W-D is the deer version of the mad cow disease. Dale Garner heads up the three-month old testing program for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. He says they’ve sampled 150 deer and all the tests have come back negative. However, Garner says it’s too early to say Iowa’s deer population is free of the disease.He says they’ll continue sampling the deer and hope to test one thousand animals by the end of the year. The samples already taken have come from deer hit on the highway.They hope to look at around 800 deer taken by hunters this fall. The testing was started after the disease was found in Wisconsin and Nebraska. Garner says the disease only affects deer and elk and not humans or cattle.
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