Rick: You misunderstood my reply above. The cost of the testing so far in WI. is right at 500,000 dollars to date. By economic impact, I was refering to the amout of money brought into WI. through lisence sales, equip. sales, lodgeing ect. Like Jorgy mentioned, CWD is only in a small portion of the state. Part of this thread in the begining pertained to the banning of baiting and feeding. I think every biologist pretty much agrees that both are a means to further the spread. With a population density far greater than Colorado, it could happen at much faster rate. If it were to get to be state wide, we are talking Billions. What did it accomplish? It defined the endemic area. First things first. Whats next? Depopulate the area to keep them from comeing in contact with healthy deer and increasing the zone size. Our DNR knows they can' t eradicate the 900 some sq. miles. They wished they never ever used the word eradicate. The more we can do to seperate the healthy from the sick, the better chance we have of the sick dieing out. I think WI. is getting federal funding to the tune of about 17(?) million to combat CWD. Thats just a portion of whats becomeing available nation wide. Whats being done in research and development? I don' t have the slightest idea what they do in the labs and universities. All I know is, all eyes are upon us to see if we can accomplish what so far no state has been able to do. Doing nothing while waiting for research and development to catch up would cost us billions. CWD has been discovered in Ill. They can' t say with any certainty how much of the state is affected with the minimal amount of testing they have done. They don' t appear to be doing anything else about it or we' d have heard from our friends to the south. I ask you, if this continues, which state do you think will contain more CWD in say 10 years? 20 years?