PHOENIX (AP) – The Arizona Game and Fish Department announced Monday that tests conducted on thousands of elk and deer either killed in the state by hunters or by automobiles have found no indication of a brain-killing disease previously found in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
The department said it found no indication of chronic wasting disease in 2,343 samples during Arizona’s 2008-2009 hunting season. A total of 12,500 deer and elk samples have been tested in Arizona since surveillance began in 1998.
Symptoms include loss of body weight, excessive salivation, increased drinking, stumbling, trembling, and behavioral changes. Those include listlessness, lowering of the head, and repetitive walking in set patterns.
Humans have never been known to contract CWD.