The discovery of deer infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD), a neurological disease of deer and elk, in central Wisconsin has Minnesota Department of Natural Resource (DNR) officials on alert.

The disease attacks the brains of infected deer and elk, causing the animal to become emaciated, lose control of their bodily functions and eventually die, an article on the Wisconsin DNR's Web site (www.dnr.state.wi.us) explains.

Mike Doncarlos, wildlife research manager of the Minnesota DNR, says CWD is a type of spongiform encephalopathy, which puts it in the same family as mad cow disease.

The Wisconsin DNR's Web site says three deer infected with CWD were discovered in Wisconsin on Feb. 28. Since March 5, wildlife officials there have collected 414 deer for testing. Of the 197 animals tested so far, a total of 10 infected with CWD have been found.

Doncarlos says "no one knows for sure how the disease is spread. Based on observed epidemiology, we're pretty sure it's spread from animal to animal, but the exact way isn't understood."

The good news is humans aren't known to be able to contract CWD. "It's not know to be able to be spread to humans," Doncarlos says. "There are no known cases of it being found in humans, but because the disease is so poorly understood, we can't say for sure."

Before Wisconsin began to see animals with CWD, Doncarlos says the Minnesota DNR wasn't looking for it and had no particular reason to believe it might be present in Minnesota.

Doncarlos says Minnesota DNR officials are on the look-out for the disease in deer herds in the state. "We've tested about 50 deer so far, mostly in southern Minnesota because those animals were readily available," he says.

"We're taking this very seriously and we'll probably be sampling hundreds of deer kill heads in the fall … until we know how wide-spread the disease is in Wisconsin, we can't do much," he adds.

If CWD is found in deer herds in Minnesota, Doncarlos says the DNR will concentrate on "containing the disease, reducing deer numbers in the area where it occurs. We need to prevent infected animals from coming in contact with non-infected animals."

"In a wild situation, unfortunately, the only practical way to do that is to kill the animals," he says.

In the meantime, the Minnesota DNR's Web site (www.dnr.state.mn.us) advises hunters to take precautions offered by the state health officials to prevent contracting any disease from a wild animal:

-Do not harvest or consume any deer that appear to be sick.

-Do not consume deer brains, spinal cords, eyes, spleen or lymph nodes.

-When field dressing a deer, wear protective gloves, especially if you have open cuts or wounds on your hands.

-Thoroughly wash knives and other field dressing tools afterwards.

-Report any deer that appear to be sick to the Minnesota DNR.