It was just two months ago when the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources was given permission by Beltrami County to put up a 10-foot fence around a dead deer site that held approximately 10-12 carcasses infected with chronic wasting disease that were discovered back in April of 2021. The Beltrami County Board of Commissioners scheduled a meeting Tuesday for an update.

This fence was placed around the first week of August to not only contain the contaminated carcasses with CWD, but to keep the healthy deer away. DNR Region Wildlife Manager Blane Klemek stood before the Board of Commissioners to give an update on what the DNR knows so far about this disease.

While many questions arose during this meeting, one question that commissioners were concerned about was if this disease can have any affect on humans. Klemek assured the board, that chronic wasting disease is not known in research that he knows of to have any effect on humans, but that no one can really say the risk is zero.

The DNR has made plans for a three-year surveillance period for this fence. What the DNR is telling hunters come opening firearms weekend, Nov. 6 and 7, is that mandatory sampling will take place.

Hunters are to bring their deer to one of 21 stations that will be throughout Beltrami County hunting grounds. There will be 13 of those sites that will be staffed to extract the lymph nodes from the deer, along with eight self-serve stations. Hunters can fill out a tag and fix it to the deer’s head, place it in a bag available at the site, and put it in a drop box for testing.

The sampling process will take up to one week to test the deers for CWD. The DNR has suggested that hunters keep the meat cold until they get the results back. It is up to the hunter if they want to keep the meat if it tests positive with CWD. If the meat is positive, and the hunter does not want to keep the meat, then the DNR will take it and dispose of it.

For more information, you can visit the DNR’s website.

By — Emma Hudziak