Though most of the state appears to be ridden of Chronic Wasting Disease, which affected many area deer and worried many Wisconsin hunters last year, much research on the topic continues, and student hunters at the University of Wisconsin are endorsing its value.

“It was a hot issue last year, but most hunters now are highly unlikely to encounter a deer with the disease,” said UW professor and Chairperson of the Department of Wildlife Ecology Scott Craven. Craven also said many people are currently engaged in researching the epidemic.

Much of current CWD research is focusing on where the disease is and is not appearing, the movements of CWD-infected deer, potential spread of the disease to other species and breaking down the makeup of the disease itself. This is because there is not currently much known about the disease, Craven said.

“There’s just a lot of uncertainty about the disease,” Craven added.

Nancy Mathews, an associate professor of wildlife ecology at UW, is currently leading a study to better understand the social behavior and movements of white-tailed deer in the CWD zone near Mt. Horeb, Wis. She hopes to get a better idea of how CWD spreads among the population.

In a recent press release, Mathews said if hunters are able to distinguish between a collared deer, marked by radio-transmitting collars, and an unmarked deer, to avoid shooting deer involved in the study.

“The information we get back is going to be crucial in helping us understand how older bucks move during the rut, and the longer we can gather data from those bucks, the better,” Mathews said.

UW sophomore Brian Johnson agreed that research is important, but said avoiding collared deer might not always be possible.

“Research is always very valuable, but when hunting one typically only has a few moments to make a decision of whether or not to shoot,” he said. “It may be very difficult to see if it is tagged.”

Johnson also said that though CWD has become an issue more recently, he believes hunters should not worry about eating infected venison.

Though eating the meat of an infected animal is not known to cause serious side effects to humans, the World Health Organization and Wisconsin Public Health Association have stood by their recommendations to avoid eating CWD-positive venison.

The disease was discovered to be infecting deer in Wisconsin in late February 2002, and became a topic of much discussion among hunters, ecologists and the state government last year.

CWD belongs to a group of neurological diseases that affect cattle, sheep and other domestic animals. For example, Scrapie, a similar disease found in sheep, has been affecting herds for more than 200 years. Mad cow disease was a large problem in Europe in the late nineties.