MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has been working with the community in an effort to help eradicate Chronic Wasting Disease among Michigan’s deer population. Since May they have been testing deer around the area.

“Well we’re pushing 5,000 now and that’s since May of last year when we first found that case in the Haslett area, the six-year-old doe that was showing symptoms of CWD and we found four additional positive deer since then, so we have a total of five positive deer and tested 5,000 so you’re talking about one in a thousand and it’s difficult to detect it when it is that low. We’re going to have to test thousands of deer per county and hundreds per township and it’s going to be a multi-year process,” says Steve Schmitt, the Supervisor of Wildlife Health at the Michigan DNR.

The sampling is broken down into a nine-township area, which is centered around Meridian Township. It is approximately a 10-mile radius circle and the DNR has tested 2,800 deer from this nine-township area so far.

“If you are a deer hunter we want you to continue hunting them in the area, if you are in that nine-township area you are required to take the deer to a check station and have it tested for CWD,” Schmitt says. There is still no evidence that humans can contract CWD but it is still recommended to have your deer tested.

Schmitt says landowners should allow hunters to come on their property and hunt deer so the DNR can get those samples. “If you are a landowner you can actually get what is called a disease control permits, these are free permits that if you have five acres or more you can use a firearm on, just give us a call and we can set you up with those and they can be used year-round,” Schmitt says.

The DNR will continue working with hunters and other members of the community to collect deer heads for testing of CWD. Schmitt says that most of the samples will be from hunter-harvested animals, road-kills and animals taken with disease control permits.