Chronic wasting disease has been confirmed in the Upper Peninsula. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is taking measures to stop the spread of the disease. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin DNR and CWD Alliance)

MARQUETTE — What wildlife officials have feared has taken place, with a white-tailed deer testing positive for chronic wasting disease in Dickinson County.

However, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources hopes proactive efforts will curb the potential problem.

The DNR announced on Thursday that a 4-year-old doe killed on a deer damage shooting permit in Waucedah Township — about 4 miles from the Michigan-Wisconsin border — tested positive for CWD, marking the first confirmation of the incurable disease in the Upper Peninsula.

The discovery was verified by Michigan State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Lansing and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.

Craig Albright, DNR Wildlife Division field operations manager based in Escanaba, said the disease is passed from deer through fluids such as saliva and blood.

“It’s always a fatal disease, unfortunately,” Albright said. “Once it gets in a deer, it accumulates and actually eats holes in the brain tissue, so the animal ends up becoming wasted in the way it looks. They lose a lot of weight. They become thin. You can see the ribs. The heads may droop, their ears may droop. They might drool. They allow people to come close to them without fear. They have excessive thirst, and eventually they end up dying.”

John Pepin, DNR deputy information officer, said it’s unclear why CWD made its way to Waucedah Township.

“The Michigan-Wisconsin border area is a place that we’ve been concentrating on a great deal over the last few years, up-taking our surveillance and monitoring efforts, testing efforts, because with there being CWD in free-ranging deer and also in captive populations of deer in Wisconsin, we always knew that that might be a possibility for them coming across this year,” Pepin said.

In fact, he said those efforts alerted the DNR to the positive-testing deer.

The DNR has tested hundreds of deer from U.P. counties bordering Wisconsin, with a total of 625 deer-damage permit, roadkill and hunter-killed deer having been tested from Dickinson, Gogebic, Menominee and Iron counties as of Oct. 11.

CWD already had been found in free-ranging deer in Clinton, Ingham, Ionia, Jackson, Kent and Montcalm counties in downstate Michigan.

Pepin said it’s unclear whether CWD will make its way to the Marquette region.

“We have an ongoing deer-movement study that we’re going to be adjusting now to include this area as part of the study to help us better understand how deer in that particular area are moving,” Pepin said.

The threat of CWD to the deer herd depends on the prevalence rate and the geographic spread, Albright said.

“We’re very much hoping that this might be a lone case or that there are not very many deer at all with the disease, and for that reason we’re going to really ramp up surveillance testing beginning right now and through the upcoming deer seasons,” Albright said.

The DNR plans several actions, which include:

≤ providing more drop boxes for deer heads within the area, especially in convenient, high-traffic places.

≤ offering disease control permits to interested landowners who have more than 5 acres of land and are within 5 miles of the center of the surveillance area.

≤ allowing baiting for deer to continue for the rest of the year, reserving the decision on feeding deer pending the results of the surveillance efforts.

≤ collaring deer in the area to better understand their movements.

Pepin said that hunters are asked to have their deer tested and turn in the animals’ heads.

In the roughly 10-mile core area, the DNR has set a goal to test at least 600 deer heads for CWD, he said, while in the wider management area that includes Marquette, an additional 300 heads are needed. This would help the DNR determine the extent of possibly infected deer.

The DNR said that to date, there have been no reported cases of CWD infection in humans, although Albright said it’s recommended that people not consume deer found to have the disease.

For more information on CWD, visit michigan.gov/cwd.

“Awareness will be a big help,” Pepin said.

In response to the announcement, state Rep. Sara Cambensy, D-Marquette, released the following statement:

“We took many measures to try to prevent this terrible disease from infecting our U.P. herds, but with the first confirmed case, we’re urging all hunters to continue to follow the guidelines put out by the MDNR. Make sure every deer is checked and tested at the designated stations, avoid long-distance movement of deer carcasses and stay up-to-date on all the latest news and regulations.”

State Rep. Scott Dianda, D-Calumet, also issued a statement:

“Hunting makes up so much of who we are in the U.P. and it’s sad to see it threatened by the spread of this awful disease. It’s up to all of us hunters to protect that tradition for future generations by making sure that we follow the guidelines set by the MDNR to keep this from spreading further throughout the peninsula.

“This is an issue I have been focused on since I attended the first meetings held about the threat of CWD in the U.P. I will continue to work with the MDNR and the U.P. CWD Task Force to find ways to limit the impact of this disease and keep our residents educated on this issue.”

State Rep. Beau LaFave, R-Iron Mountain, said in a prepared statement: “We must do everything we can to protect Michigan’s natural resources for generations to come, and so I have urged the DNR to take every possible step toward eradicating the disease in Waucedah as quickly as possible. I also urge all hunters to do their part to contain CWD by bringing their deer in for testing.”