FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:?Feb. 12, 2024
Contact: Erin Larson, DNR Deer Herd Health Specialist
[email protected] or 608-516-2783

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New Baiting And Feeding Ban For
Ozaukee County Effective Feb. 15

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MADISON, Wis. ? The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was recently notified by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) that a farm-raised deer on a deer farm in Sheboygan County tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). This positive result is within 10 miles of the Fond du Lac, Ozaukee and Washington county borders, resulting in a new baiting and feeding ban to go into effect in Ozaukee County on Feb. 15, 2024.

State law requires that the DNR enact a three-year baiting and feeding ban in counties where CWD has been detected and a two-year ban in adjoining counties within 10 miles of a CWD detection. If additional CWD cases are found during the lifetime of a baiting and feeding ban, the ban will renew for an additional two or three years.

This detection will cause the following:

• Ozaukee will begin a two-year baiting and feeding ban on Feb. 15, 2024.
• Sheboygan, Fond du Lac and Washington counties will renew the bans already in place.

The DNR also reminds the public that it is illegal to hunt over an area previously used for legal baiting and feeding until that area is completely free of bait or feed for 10 consecutive days.

Baiting or feeding deer encourages them to congregate unnaturally around a shared food source where infected deer can spread CWD through direct contact with healthy deer or by leaving behind infectious prions in their saliva, blood, feces and urine.

More information regarding baiting and feeding regulations is available on the DNR?s Baiting and Feeding webpage.