This is pretty scary

Pretty scary stuff. You can thank game ranching and interstate transport of wildlife for spreading this rapidly through the country. Whitetails and Elk both get it, but whitetails seem to be more likely to contract it. It originated out in colorado, in a captive elk research facility. They don't know if the disease was always around or if it jumped from sheep that had scrapie that were held at the same facility. (same type of disease as scrapie in sheep, mad cow in cows, CJD in humans). It didn't spread very fast naturally as mule deer seem more resistant to it and that is what is out there with the elk. Whitetails are extremely susceptible to it. It is in Wisconsin now, I hate to see how it spreads when it gets going in the high deer herds of the eastern united states. We may have too many deer in ND, but our problem is no where near the densities they have east of us.