Legalectric

In the StarTribune today:

Soaring CWD numbers in southeastern Minnesota prompt DNR to stop culling deer

Here’s the STrib’s map below — this map might be from just this year’s testing?

I’ve been tracking chronic wasting disease in deer for a while, right up there with bovine spungiform encephalophy (BSE, “mad cow”) sheep scrapie, even in pigs, and of course Creutzfeld-Jakob in humans (ages ago, it was also Jakob-Creutzfeld). This came to my attention in the late 1990s, when a swimming coach at Northfield high school died of Jakob-Creutzfeld.

• Of mad cows and pissy deer… September 15, 2005
• Downer cows = Mad Cow disease? February 11th, 2008
• Mad Cow Beef & MN Dept of Education February 11th, 2008
• They’re actually saying “MAD COW” February 19th, 2008
• Creutzfeld-Jakob variant – 4th declared case June 6th, 2014
• More CWD (chronically wasted deer) in MN December 30th, 2016

And then there’s all the elk at Elk Run:

Sharpshooters begin destroying elk herd

What does CWD mean to Elk Run development?

From CWD-INFO.org, a detailed source of info which seems up to date:

Preliminary Test Identifies CWD-Positive Wild Deer in Southeast Minnesota

MN – News release: CWD confirmed in a wild deer near Wheaton in western Minnesota

Here’s the CWD-INFO.org map:

And reason for concern among hunters:

2 hunters may have died of prion disease from eating contaminated deer meat, researchers say

Deaths of three men prompt Wisconsin to look for connection to fatal brain disease in deer

Fair use from Rolling Stone

Next Pine Island City Council meeting: 7/17 at 7!

City Council Meetings are held the 3^rd Tuesday of the month at 7 pm on the 2^nd floor of City Hall. City Council Meetings can be viewed here.

In New York Times:

All over U.S., Local Officials Cancel Deals to Detain Immigrants

The ICE request for proposals:

Immigration Detention Services – Multiple Areas of Responsibility 

Summary-of-Responses-to-October-2017-ICE

Pine Island – Proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement in which Pine Island says:

Right…

Let Pine Island know what you think about an ICE detention facility:

Mayor Rod Steele <rodamic49@hotmail.com>, Jerry Vettel <tarboxgv@gmail.com>, Jason Johnson <jacareaz3@gmail.com>, Mike Hildenbrand <hildenbrand.mike@gmail.com>, David Friese <davidfriese.cityofpineisland@gmail.com>, City Administrator <david.todd@ci.pineisland.mn.us>, Finance-Account Clerk <carol.krueger@ci.pineisland.mn.us>, Economic Development Director <pieda@bevcomm.net>

Some recent articles:

Should Pine Island stay in the discussion for ICE detention center?

Our View: ICE looks at Pine Island for detention center

Pine Island Looked at as Potential Site for ICE Detention Center

How one Minn. town is weighing the morals and economics of immigrant detention

 

Minnesota DNR page on Chronic Wasting Disease

In the STrib:

Chronic wasting disease seen in SE Minn. deer

If the preliminary diagnosis is confirmed, it marks the first time the disease has been found in Minnesota’s wild deer herd.

By DENNIS ANDERSON, Star Tribune

A deer killed by an archer in southeast Minnesota last fall is believed to have been infected by chronic wasting disease, the first wild whitetail in the state to be stricken.

Preliminary tests show that a doe felled Nov. 28 near Pine Island in Olmsted County carried the disease. Very little of the animal has been eaten by the hunter or his family, the Department of Natural Resources reported Friday morning, and authorities will pick up the butchered meat for further testing.

CWD is not believed to pose a danger to humans, though hunters and others who eat venison and elk meat are warned that an animal’s brains and spinal cord should be avoided.

The deer was killed about three miles from a captive elk farm near Pine Island that had been shut down recently after CWD was identified in its herd, which subsequently was “de-populated,’’ or killed in its entirety.

DNR big game coordinator Lou Cornicelli said Friday there is no way to determine how the wild deer became infected.

Before it was shot, the animal appeared thin, the archer recalled, but otherwise behaved normally. CWD can gestate in an infected animal for as long as four years before clinical signs of the disease are detected and the animal dies.

The archer has asked state authorities to remain anonymous.
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