An omnibus spending bill passed by Congress late last year will supply funding to research and manage a fatal deer disease that was detected in Idaho for the first time last year.
The $1.7 trillion federal bill, which the U.S. House passed Dec. 23, included a provision to pass the Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act. The legislation had faltered after it was introduced last December as a way to unify state and tribal responses to chronic wasting disease, which is a contagious disease caused by malformed proteins called prions.
Now states like Idaho, which is trying to pinpoint and corral the deadly disease before it continues to spread, have a chance at federal funding to manage chronic wasting disease. The legislation will put $70 million annually for five years toward research on detecting the disease in live animals, suppressing it in infected animals and managing it in wild populations.
