Wisconsin’s Natural Resource Board met Wednesday at the state Capitol to vote on the final plan to deal with Chronic Wasting disease in the state’s deer herd.

The plan, which has been in effect since June 2002, creates an eradication zone in the Mt. Horeb area, in which all deer in the zone are being killed to prevent further spread of the disease. A warm winter and lower than expected deer kills in the November 2002 gun hunting season has perpetuated the fears of farmers and ecologists, who say that out-of-control deer populations could cause massive damage to local ecosystems and, in addition, could spread a disease that is still somewhat of a mystery.

Jonathan Ela, a conservationist and retired Sierra Club member who presides over the Resource Board said that although support of the Department of Natural Resources plan has wavered since it went into effect, the Board decided to make the plan permanent.

“The Board basically approved the rule as it had been approved by the Department, and it will go into effect on Sept. 1, 2003,” Ela said. “The rule is an established process where if any Chronic Wasting Disease is found, an eradication zone has to be set up, and they try and remove all the animals and try [to] reduce the herd in a broader area.”

A hotly debated sticking point of the DNR’s plan has been a statewide ban on baiting and trapping deer.

Board member Herbert Behnke said he voted in favor of continuing the DNR’s plan with all the sensibility modern science provided him.

“All of the scientific evidence says that baiting and feeding contributes to the spread of disease,” Behnke said.

The Board voted by a narrow four-to-three majority to continue the ban on baiting and feeding. Ela said the concept of baiting and feeding deer raises issues of ethics and sportsmanship, but that the Board only looked at the disease prevention problems it presented.

“We don’t have absolute certainty that the disease isn’t out there, and it will take a while before we really do,” Ela said. “The issue that was considered today at the board meeting was whether the role of trapping and baiting in advancing disease is significant enough to justify the ban. Baiting and feeding undoubtedly increases animal-to-animal contact which spreads the disease.”

Board members met with six leading national experts on deer disease at the Fluno Center in Madison to answer questions to educate themselves for Wednesday’s vote.

The panel of experts unanimously agreed that the DNR was pursuing the best possible course of action to prevent the spread of the disease, and had not only Wisconsin’s interests but also those of the entire nation in mind.

“The bottom line is that they agreed unanimously that the DNR is on the right track,” Behnke said.

Behnke also said that while some feel the baiting and feeding ban must only continue in the CWD eradication zone and not the rest of the state, the ban is truly designed to prevent the propagation of all deer disease. Behnke gave the example of Michigan’s deer herd, which has become infected with bovine tuberculosis. As many as 30 domestic cowherds in the Michigan mainland have become infected with the disease.

“If bovine TB spread from the deer herd to domestic cow herds, it would be a disastrous economic blow to Wisconsin,” Behnke said.