Wildlife officials announce emergency action after chronic wasting disease found in Catahoula Parish deer

Department of Wildlife and Fisheries officials said the state will seek emergency authority and expand an existing chronic wasting disease (CWD) control zone after a wild deer in Catahoula Parish tested positive for the fatal prion disease.

Cole Garrett, general counsel for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, told the joint Natural Resources Committee that the department will ask the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission at its Thursday meeting to adopt a declaration of emergency and a notice of intent to expand a 25-mile radius CWD control zone around the new positive test.

“That mutated prion is going to survive in the environment,” Garrett said. “It is always fatal.” He described CWD transmission as occurring through saliva, urine and feces and said the disease can persist in soil and on surfaces.

The department said its current CWD protocol inside a…