New baiting and feeding ban for Taylor County effective Dec. 1

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was recently notified by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection that a farm-raised deer on a deer farm in Taylor County tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). This positive result is within 10 miles of the border of both Chippewa and Clark counties.
State law requires that the DNR enact a three-year baiting and feeding ban in counties where CWD has been detected and a two-year ban in adjoining counties within 10 miles of a CWD detection. If additional CWD cases are found during the lifetime of a baiting and feeding ban, the ban will renew for an additional two or three years.
This detection will cause the following:
• Taylor County will begin a three-year baiting and feeding ban on Dec. 1, 2026.
• Chippewa County will renew the baiting and feeding ban for another two years from Dec. 1, 2026.

• Clark County already has a baiting and feeding ban in place from recent wild detections in the county. This county will not be impacted by the detection, as the existing ban is longer than the two-year ban that would otherwise result from this detection.
Baiting or feeding deer encourages them to congregate unnaturally around a shared food source where infected deer can spread CWD through direct contact with healthy deer or by leaving behind infectious prions in their saliva, blood, feces and urine.
More information regarding baiting and feeding regulations is available on the DNR’s Baiting and Feeding webpage at https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/hunt/bait.
More general information about CWD can be found on the DNR’s CWD webpage at https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/wildlifehabitat/cwd.