Tests On Colorado Elk Pending
To Detect BSE-Like Condition

DEL NORTE, Colo. — Officials are awaiting tests on nine ranch-raised elk and more than 50 wild deer and elk killed in Colorado.

The tests are for chronic wasting disease, the deer and elk equivalent to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. There is no test for live animals.

While chronic wasting disease is similar to BSE in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, there is no evidence that it can be transmitted from one species to another.

Colorado officials have confirmed six cases of chronic wasting disease in the state. Five cases have been traced to Elk Echo Ranch here.

Officials say there appear to be 245 sales of infected elk to ranches in states as far away as Pennsylvania.

A ranch in New Mexico that bought elk from the Colorado ranch where infected elk have been found is destroying its small herd of 14 elk as a preventive measure.

Dr. Wayne Cunningham, Colorado State Veterinarian, says they are still trying to determine the extent of exposure.

Colorado has quarantined between 1300 and 1600 ranch-raised elk.

Elk are raised domestically for breeding, hunting, meat and velvet antlers used in nutritional supplements and medicines.

There are about 14,000 captive elk in Colorado. There are more than 250,000 wild elk and 550,000 deer.

All of the 650 elk at Craig McConnell's Elk Echo Ranch here and All American Antler Ranch at Stoneham in northeast Colorado will be killed.

McConnell says he stands to lose a $4 million investment.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a $2 million fund to reimburse ranchers whose herds are destroyed.

Neighboring Nebraska is banning imports of elk from Colorado and from Saskatchewan, Canada, where another outbreak has been reported.