Are road-kill deer tested for CWD?

The Cap Times says deer carcasses are piling up along state highways and some officials say a sloppy hand-off of the job from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to the Department of Transportation is to blame.

I'd written about these matters in the spring when Walker's proposed budget called for shifting deer carcass removal tfrom the DNR to WisDOT - - after he failed ailed in an earlier budget to hand off this messy job to already-fiscally strapped county governments - - and the Cap Times story allows me to call further attention to one part of the issue I'd emphasized in my earlier blog post which is still under-covered:

 

Does WisDOT, with budgetary and mission problems galore, have the right contractors, staffers and equipment statewide a) to make sure deer carcasses are promptly and safely picked up, and b) to guarantee the carcasses will be professionally incinerated - - not landfilled - - in case they carry chronic wasting disease, (CWD), which is known to be spreading while Wisconsin officials slow-walk towards a solution?

I have been told that deer carcasses should be tested for chronic wasting disease before being landfilled.

You'd have to examine the contracts which WisDOT has signed with haulers and verify the follow through to ascertain whether anyone is putting a CWD focus on the matter.

I see a further connection from the issue of deer carcass disposal to the disregard of Wisconsin wildlife summarized in a section of this analysis of damage done to the wenvironment since Walker's 2011 inauguration:

Like water, Wisconsin wildlife - - another public trust - - in "ongoing decline."

Like our Wisconsin water resources, our state’s wildlife—deer, birds, and predators alike—are held in trust for current and future generations of Wisconsin citizens. But, regrettably, the last few years has shown an ongoing decline in regulatory oversight over our wildlife, placing this invaluable resource in jeopardy and creating public safety and health risks to the public at large.

While the elimination of Wisconsin DNR’s Science Services Bureau speaks volumes in and of itself, the state’s de-prioritization of science bodes particularly poorly for wildlife management and complies with a harmful trend toward increased deregulation as highlighted below.

Wisconsin’s Deer Herd and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD): 

As well reported, it is evident that Walker’s DNR and Wisconsin’s legislative leadership have demonstrated a remarkable lack of will to combat the spread of CWD, in particular, the will to protect the state’s wild deer population in any manner at odds with business interests of the captive deer farm lobby.

Rather than taking a proactive approach with respect to CWD-infested deer farms or following the lead of Michigan and Illinois’ wildlife agencies, Wisconsin’s DNR has been aptly characterized as a “mute, powerless observer” in the face of the CWD threat. 

Even regulation as basic as CWD monitoring has precipitously declined; compared to more than 40,000 deer tested in 2002, 6,129 deer were tested in the 2016 hunt - - resources, here and here and here.