Crow Wing County Landfill To Provide Free Disposal Of Deer Carcasses To Prevent The Spread Of CWD

The Crow Wing County landfill is taking precaution to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease. Hunters will be able to dispose of any deer carcasses free of charge at the Crow Wing County landfill in an effort to get as many deer off the landscape and into the landfill.

Chronic wasting disease is a neurological disease that affects the brain of a deer, causing them to die about one year after contracting the disease. Currently, there has only been one positive test of CWD in the history of Crow Wing County, comparable to some counties in Wisconsin that experience 150 to 200 positive cases of CD a year.

That being said, Crow Wing County officials are taking full precaution to eliminate any contamination.

“The easy answer that we could have done was just say, ‘you know, we don’t want any deer to come into our landfill, we’ll just let the public figure out what they’re going to do any throw the deer back on the landscape,’ but that’s not the right thing to do,” said Crow Wing County Environmental Services Supervisor Ryan Simonson.

“The more deer that go back onto the landscape when the hunters harvest a deer, throw their deer back out, that has the potential to spread chronic wasting disease more, as many deer that we can get in here from the hunters, the better,” said Simonson.

The gun deer season opener is November 9th, and starting November 1st, the Crow Wing County landfill will be open Monday through Friday from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.