Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a Montana mule deer has been confirmed on the northern border with Canada.

The mule deer buck was shot by a hunter November 12 north of Chester on the Highline, in hunting district 401.

CWD has been found in deer hundreds of miles away on Montana's southern border with Wyoming earlier this year. Officials say the disease has almost surrounded the state in the past years - reports in Wyoming, North and South Dakota and Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada.

A Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks incident command team will be addressing the detection in Liberty County and may recommend a special CWD hunt. Such a hunt has been ordered for the area south of Billings, where the other diseased deer were found.

Chronic Wasting Disease is a fatal disease that attacks the central nervous system of deer, elk and moose. Though there is no evidence that it is transmissible to humans, officials recommend never eating meat from a CWD-infected animal.

Hunters should wear rubber gloves and eye protection when field dressing an animal and minimize handling brain and spinal tissues. Wash up thoroughly after field dressing.

There's more information at the Montana FWP website.

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