Bluff View Builds CWD Kiosk
Bluff View technical education students who built a CWD drop-off kiosk are Lexi Petsche, Faith Meyer, Trevor Ziegler, Chandler Farmer and Chazz Farmer.
The CWD drop-off kiosk is in front of NCS Gunsmithing, Sales and Indoor Archery in Prairie du Chien.
Instructions are found on the kiosk.
Bluff View students build kiosk to
collect samples in effort to fight CWD
By Ted Pennekamp
The Bluff View Intermediate School Technical Education department, along with the school’s “Into the Outdoors” program have teamed up with the Wisconsin DNR to provide a service for Crawford and Grant County deer hunters.
Bluff View teacher Kirby Kohler, who helps lead the Into the Outdoors program, contacted the DNR about creating a Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) drop-off point in Prairie du Chien.
Five members of Ken Quick’s seventh and eighth-grade technical education class then built a CWD drop-off kiosk which is now located in front of NCS Gunsmithing, Sales and Indoor Archery at 815 E. Campion Boulevard in Prairie du Chien.
The DNR provided the plans and the lumber and Lexi Petsche, Faith Meyer, Trevor Ziegler, Chandler Farmer and Chazz Farmer went to work, said Quick. The team started around Nov. 1 and worked on the project every day for about a half hour. Quick said the white kiosk was completed the Thursday before the nine-day gun-deer season.
About a dozen deer heads were dropped off this year, said Kohler, who, along with Into the Outdoors members, check the kiosk every other day.
Kohler noted that there is a saw, plastic bags, and instructions on the kiosk. Deer heads can also be cut off of the carcass before going to the kiosk. Hunters put the deer heads inside of the kiosk which is free of charge. They also fill out information for the DNR.
When there is a head or heads in the kiosk, the DNR is contacted and the heads are taken to a lab in Black River Falls to be checked for CWD by DNR biologists. There is no charge to hunters.
“It’s a free and easy way to help out,” said Kohler, who noted that, hopefully, the kiosk will receive more deer heads next season in the continuing effort to combat CWD. “The DNR needs more samples,” he said.
