PA Game Commission moves to contain case of Chronic Wasting Disease

(Harrisburg) -- The state Game Commission is monitoring a 600 square mile Disease Management Area in the wake of the discovery of Chronic Wasting Disease in a captive deer in Adams County.

The so-called DMA includes portions of Adams and York counties and encompasses the New Oxford farm, as well as two others where the sick deer may have stayed.

Game Commisssion spokesman Jerry Feaser says it prohibits the feeding and rehabilitation of wild deer within the boundary, which also includes a part of the Gettysburg battlefield.

He notes a check station has been opened for archery deer hunters in the management area. "Any deer hunter within this Wildlife Management Area...we're encouraging them to come to the check station we have operating right now on the state game land," he says. "We will take the sample for to submit for testing. They can, then, leave the high-risk body parts at that check station and we'll properly dispose of them."

CWD DMA Roads Towns

By high-risk body parts, Feaser's referring to things like the brain, eyes, backbone and spleen of the animial -- areas that may have been infected with Chronic Wasting Disease.

During the upcoming two-week firearms deer season, the Game Commission is requiring all hunters who harvest a deer within the DMA to bring it to the check station.

CWD has not been found in the wild whitetail population in the state and is not harmful to humans.