REGIONAL—Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, continues its slow march across Minnesota, and it moved ever closer to the North Country with the latest discovery this week.
The DNR reported that they’ve confirmed the first documented case of CWD in a wild deer within the city limits of Grand Rapids, on the southwest tip of the Iron Range.
A homeowner in Grand Rapids had reported the deer, which had died in his yard after being struck by a vehicle back in February. DNR staff recovered the carcass and testing confirmed the presence of CWD.
The DNR is taking immediate steps to understand the prevalence of the disease in wild deer in the Grand Rapids area, according to a statement issued by the agency on Tuesday. The agency will work with local road authorities to collect samples from road-killed deer and is exploring opportunities for targeted culling where it can be performed safely.
The DNR is also updating its chronic wasting disease response plan to better reflect a statewide approach to disease surveillance, management, control and education. 
“We’ve always looked at CWD as a disease that could impact the entire state, yet implemented disease management actions as needed in each area where CWD was found,” said Kelly Straka, the DNR’s wildlife section manager. “This new discovery doesn’t make CWD a statewide problem, but it does mean we need to take more of a statewide approach.”
While the surveillance outlined in the DNR’s current response plan made this detection possible, the finding of CWD in Grand Rapids highlights the need for an enhanced statewide sampling approach. 
The enhanced statewide surveillance will include: 
Updating the DNR’s CWD response plan this spring.
Investigating options for hunters to use a self-mailing kit for free testing statewide. 
Expanding the taxidermist network statewide. 
Upgrading and improving the current design for self-service stations.
The DNR will seek public input as it explores and implements the ideas above and other options for enhanced statewide surveillance.
“The DNR has taken an aggressive approach to managing CWD in Minnesota,” said DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen. “We will continue this strong approach as we address this latest finding and as we update our statewide CWD response plan. The health of Minnesota’s wild deer herd remains a top priority for the DNR.”
There now are eight areas spread across Minnesota, from north to south, where CWD has been found in wild or farmed deer. Despite these detections, the disease remains rare in Minnesota. Fewer than one percent of deer have tested positive for CWD in areas where the disease has consistently been detected during the past five years.
Since 2002, the DNR has tested 106,000 deer statewide and 153 have tested positive. Most of those cases occurred in southeastern Minnesota.
The DNR received confirmation of the Grand Rapids CWD infection on March 15. Results of a full necropsy showed the deer died from a collision with a vehicle, not CWD. The deer showed no clinical signs of the disease but final test results confirmed the infection.
Active surveillance for CWD has not occurred in the location where the infected deer was found (deer permit area 179) since 2004. The DNR conducted CWD surveillance to the west and north of Grand Rapids in fall 2021 in response to captive deer infected with CWD on a Beltrami County farm. More than 1,800 samples were tested and CWD was not detected.