The foliage was thicker, the weather warmer and the atmosphere more somber than the frigid weather and frivolity that typify the state's annual fall hunt.

"It had a completely different feel about it," hunter Eric Haugen said. "It's more of a duty. There's not that excitement because you're not keeping the deer you shoot."

The state Department of Natural Resources is hoping to kill more than 15,000 deer in a 361-square-mile area in southwestern Wisconsin in an attempt to rid the population of the disease that causes whitetail deer to waste away and die.

CWD has been found in a number of western states and is a big concern to wildlife biologists and hunters alike.

WesternHunter.com friend, actor and outdoor writer, James Swan, author of In Defense of Hunting, recently published an article on CWD which has a new theory on its orgin. Here is the link to his article for NationalReview.com http://www.nationalreview.com/swan/swan052302.asp