BURLINGTON -- No case of chronic wasting disease, or CWD, has been found yet among the deer of Kane County. But it does kill deer across the border in DeKalb County, and the front line in Kane County's defense is the 829-acre Burlington Prairie Forest Preserve.
For the second season, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources will kill about a half dozen deer in the preserve in January or February and test their bodies for the fatal animal disease.
The Kane County Forest Preserve Commission gave permission Thursday to repeat the tests. So far, the IDNR has wanted to do the testing only in the Burlington preserve because it is less than two miles from where a deer with CWD was found last year, on the DeKalb County side of the Kane-DeKalb border.
IDNR regional biologist Frank Ostling said the deer will be killed by sharpshooters. Tissues from the animals' brains and lymph nodes then will be tested for the virus. If the animal is determined to be healthy, the meat will be donated to a food pantry.
"The reason Burlington Forest Preserve is targeted is that it's the only significant piece of deer habitat near that CWD-positive site just across the DeKalb border," said Paul Shelton, wildlife program manager for the IDNR.
Shelton said that DeKalb incident involved just one deer. However, 28 cases have been found in all of DeKalb County since the first case was found in Illinois, in 2002. Four have been found in DeKalb County this year alone.
"Most of the DeKalb cases have been in the northwest part of the county," Shelton said. "But when even one case shows up like this one, we want to monitor the area and try to determine whether it is just an isolated case or whether a new hot spot of the disease is forming."
McHenry County also has seen quite a few CWD cases -- four this year and 20 since 2002. But the main hotbed of CWD activity remains Winnebago and Boone counties, which contain Rockford and Belvidere. Winnebago's 109 cases and Boone's 95 account for four-fifths of all cases in Illinois.
Local hunters actually will benefit in one way from the epidemic. To thin out deer herds in the infection area, IDNR has scheduled an additional gun-hunting season in Kane, DeKalb, McHenry, Boone and Winnebago counties, from Dec. 31 to Jan. 3, 2010, and Jan. 15-17, 2010.
CWD infects the nervous systems of deer, elk and moose, and seems to be 100 percent fatal. It is not known to attack human beings. But just in case, authorities discourage people from eating infected animals.
Shelton said the IDNR encourages hunters to have their deer tested for CWD. He said many meat lockers will cut out tissue samples and send them to the IDNR; and during gun-hunting season (Nov. 20-22 and Dec. 3-6), the IDNR will set up its own test sites. For more information, visit www.dnr.state.il.us/admin/deer.htm and http://dnr.state.il.us/cwd/.