MONTREAL—Officials in Quebec are banking on a massive cull of the province’s deer population to help prevent the spread of a fatal disease after its first-ever case was detected on a game farm north of Montreal. On Thursday, government officials announced a plan to cull between 300 and 350 deer in order to test for the disease. On Thursday, they announced a plan to cull between 300 and 350 deer in order to test for the disease. Michel Baril, a biologist with Quebec’s hunters and anglers federation, said the highly contagious disease has the potential to decimate the wild deer population if it spreads. “If it gets out in the wild population there is no way of controlling it,” he said in a phone interview.

Source: thestar September 30, 2018 10:52 UTC