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HELENA, Mont. (AP) Montana wildlife officials tested about 2,000 deer, elk and Moose collected during the 2008-2009 hunting season and did not detect chronic wasting disease in any of the animals tested.

The fatal disease affects the nervous system of members of the deer family.

Montana's detection program tests sick and road-killed deer, elk and moose; and hunter harvest samples collected in "high risk" areas along Montana's borders with Wyoming, South Dakota, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Over the past 11 years the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has tested more than 14,000 wild elk and deer in Montana for CWD and has not yet found any evidence of the disease.

CWD was diagnosed in 1999 in nine captive elk on a game farm near Philipsburg. All the animals there were destroyed and the facility was quarantined.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APNP 06-26-09 1308CDT | save this article / add to your favorites list