The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced Wednesday that a wild deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Marquette County.

This is the first time CWD, which affects the nervous systems of deer and elk and has no known cure, has been discovered in the province.

Across a growing swath of North America, these animals are dying from a mysterious disorder called chronic wasting disease. It’s caused not by a virus or bacterium, but a deformed protein called a prion.

Chronic wasting disease long thought not to affect human health.

CWD was first recorded in Saskatchewan in 1996 on a game farm, but has since moved into the wild deer, elk and moose populations, with wildfire-like infection rates in some areas. Up to 70 per cent of male deer are infected with the fatal disease, says a wildlife health specialist.

Idaho’s most controversial predator could play a role in managing the spread of a deadly deer and elk disease, according to a leading research scientist.