Fish and Wildlife suing Louisville man in deer disease case
FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) — The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife is suing a Louisville man who allegedly brought a deer head back into the state from Wisconsin that later tested positive for an infectious disease that kills deer and elk.
Fish and Wildlife say the deer head Nicholas Behringer brought back into the state tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). The 47-year-old allegedly admitted to violating state regulation for illegally importing the deer head from another state and paid a $50 fine in Shelby County District Court in January.
“Because the deer came from Wisconsin, a state that documented its first case of CWD more than two decades ago, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife ordered testing of tissues from the imported deer head. Results from two types of tests confirmed the deer had the neurologic disease that is fatal to deer and elk,” a press release from Fish and Wildlife says. “To date, no deer or elk harvested or occurring otherwise in Kentucky has ever tested positive for CWD. Fortunately, the infected Wisconsin deer parts were contained and frozen in transport and storage.”
According to Fish and Wildlife, Behringer legally checked his 8-point buck in accordance with Wisconsin’s regulations. He then brought the intact head of the deer into Kentucky for taxidermy, in violation of Kentucky’s prohibition on the importation of deer carcasses or high-risk parts having potentially infectious tissue.
Fish and Wildlife filed the complaint in Franklin County on April 26 and is seeking nearly $1,900 in damages. The amount represents the department’s costs of investigation, testing, prosecution and disposal of the infected carcass parts.
CWD is a fatal neurological disease of white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, caribou and moose. The disease was first recognized as a “wasting syndrome” in mule deer in a research facility in northern Colorado in 1967 and has since spread to free-ranging and captive populations in 30 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces.
