New chronic wasting disease case found in central Minnesota

Minnesota officials have found another case of chronic wasting disease, this time in a captive deer that died on a farm in Meeker County near Dassel in central Minnesota.

The Board of Animal Health says the 2-year-old female white-tailed deer was born on a farm in Crow Wing County in east-central Minnesota, where two deer infected with the fatal brain disease were found last month. Both herds have been quarantined.

Chronic wasting disease has also turned up in six wild deer shot by hunters near Preston in southeastern Minnesota since November.

Wildlife managers opened up the surrounding area for a special hunt and issued permits to landowners to try to reduce the deer herd in that area and stop the spread of the disease, which isn't known to infect humans.