Steve Breaker lives in Shawano County, but hunts deer on family property in Waupaca County.
That’s why he showed up May 1 for Waupaca County’s County Deer Advisory Council (CDAC) meeting in Manawa.
Besides being interested in the council’s recommendations for Waupaca County’s upcoming 2025 deer hunting seasons, Breaker also wanted to share his thoughts on chronic wasting disease, which first showed up in Wisconsin more than 20 years ago and has recently spread to both counties.
“The Shawano and Waupaca county area is some of the most densely deer-populated areas in the United States,” he said.
Breaker suspects a private deer farm is the reason for recent positive CWD cases in his area.
“It borders our family farm,” he said. “It started inside (the deer farm’s) fence and because it’s a single fence, it was only a matter of time until it got out. I don’t think (escaped deer) caused the disease. I think it came through the fence. I do testing for the DNR, and our family was the first to find chronic wasting disease in Shawano County.”
The state Department of Natural Resources has confirmed a handful of CWD-positive cases in wild deer in both counties, including two in Waupaca County in 2022 and one more last year — all in the town of Wyoming, which borders Shawano County.
“We’ve had three this year, and we’ve had at least a half-dozen cases in Shawano County,” Breaker said.
Breaker, a member of Shawano County’s CDAC, brought up the issue of chronic wasting disease at the county’s CDAC meeting April 29 in Shawano.
“Our biologist touched on it, and I asked specific questions to keep it at the forefront,” he said. “As far as spectators that were there from the public, it wasn’t brought up, but the overpopulation of deer was. There are people out there that definitely realize we have too many deer, but I think we’ve reached our capacity or our willingness to try and do something about it. People take the number of deer that they want.”
Waupaca and Shawano counties are in the same boat, according to Breaker.
“In Shawano County, there are an estimated 84 deer per square mile,” he said. “Overall, I think our numbers are very similar.”
As far as dealing with CWD, Breaker said he would like to see the DNR follow an adjacent state’s plan.
“It would have been nice if we had taken an approach (to CWD) like Minnesota did,” he said. “They’re very proactive. When they find a positive, they go in and do a lot of testing. They do a lot of herd control to try and keep things in check. This is an environmental contaminant. Once you have it, you can try and reduce the prevalence, but you’re never going to get rid of it.”
Breaker said one of his biggest concerns with the disease is its potential effect on humans.
“People only like to talk about deer getting chronic wasting, but there are many other animals that are affected: raccoons, mink, ferrets, mice, beavers, cats,” he said. “My question is: What combination of animals does chronic wasting have to go through before I get chronic wasting?”
According to the DNR, there are no reported cases of humans being infected with CWD, although public health officials recommend not consuming meat from deer that tested positive for the disease and to consider testing deer prior to consumption, especially in areas where the disease is prevalent.
“My biggest concern is people as a whole and hunters are unaware or unconcerned,” Breaker said. “The problem with CWD is it doesn’t kill deer fast enough. If your deer numbers all of a sudden start declining, people would be a lot more concerned.
“This is a long-term, very slow-developing process. It’s like standing on train tracks and there’s a train coming at you at 5 miles an hour. After awhile, you kind of forget about it. It’s going to get here.”
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