Outdoor News Daily

A total of 31 white-tailed deer tested positive for bovine tuberculosis in 2009, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced today.

No elk tested positive for the disease.

In Deer Management Unit 452, the core area of concern, 1.9 percent of deer tested for TB were infected, the same percentage as in 2008. Elsewhere in the five-county tuberculosis zone, .4 percent of deer tested a positive a slight, but statistically insignificant, increase from .3 in 2008.

No TB-positive deer were found in Iosco or Shiawassee counties, where infected deer have been found in the past.

Although the trend continues to show a statistically decreased prevalence of infection since TB was discovered in the deer herd 1995, prevalence is flat over the last five years, said DNRE wildlife veterinarian Dr. Steve Schmitt.

“We’re kind of in a holding pattern,” Schmitt said. “We haven’t been able to gain any ground in the last five years. Unless we change our strategy, we may maintain the current level of transmission for the foreseeable future.”

In 2009, one captive cervid herd tested positive for TB.

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