SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The state's search for fatal chronic wasting disease will be expanded into northwest South Dakota this fall after an infected mule deer was found just across the border.
It's the first confirmed case of CWD in North Dakota. In South Dakota, 139 infected elk and deer have been found in three southwest counties in the past 13 years.
Research continues nationwide on a mystery disease that attacks the brain of infected animals and has been found in 13 states and Canada.
Lab tests confirmed CWD in a deer killed by a hunter last fall in North Dakota's Sioux County on land within the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which straddles the two states.
Wildlife managers for the states and tribe will look for more cases by testing samples taken from deer heads provided by hunters in November. Lymph nodes are removed from the animal and tested in a lab.
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"We're going to pull as many samples as we can and see where this disease is," said Steve Griffin, a wildlife biologist for the GF&P in Rapid City.
"I'm hoping to get at least 500 (samples) among the three agencies, but that's just a shot in the dark."
Since 1997, South Dakota's GF&P has tested 21,438 animals -- mostly from hunter-provided deer and elk in Fall River, Custer and Pennington counties.
In North Dakota, the single confirmed CWD case came from about 16,000 samples of deer, elk and moose tested since 2002, said Dan Grove, the state's wildlife veterinarian.
North Dakota annually tests hunter-donated deer heads in a rotational system that this year targets the eastern third of the state. The Sioux County-area surveillance will be extra and comes in a hunting unit with 3,600-4,000 licenses.
"We figure about 3 to 5 percent of what hunters actually harvest is available for testing," Grove said Thursday.
"Hopefully we can increase that down in that area by making people aware that we are collecting, that there is a more specific need because we have found a positive."
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has met with wildlife agencies from both states and will cooperate in collecting deer samples, said Barry Betts, a wildlife biologist under contract with the tribe.
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Within days of the CWD confirmation, the tribe killed deer in the immediate area and found no additional infections in 16 samples that were tested, he said.
Infected animals lose weight and muscle control and eventually die. The disease can't be diagnosed using physical symptoms because many big-game diseases affect animals in similar ways, according to the GF&P.
Officials say there is no evidence that CWD can be transmitted to humans or animals other than deer, elk and moose. But hunters are advised not to handle or eat wild animals that appear sick and to take other precautions when handling or transporting deer or elk carcasses.
The extra testing in that part of the Dakotas will likely be a multiyear effort.
"I would say we're probably in a three-year process one way or another, just to rule it out," said Griffin.
Elsewhere in the state, the GF&P kills deer that appear to be sick and tests for CWD.
"If it shows up that's probably how we're going to find it," Griffin said. "We just don't have the personnel to collect heads in every county in the state."
