For seven years, freshman Josh Dumke has gone deer hunting at daybreak with his father. Despite threats of chronic wasting disease infiltrating Wisconsin and Minnesota’s deer population, Dumke’s family tradition will remain primarily the same this year.

The two men leave to go hunting a few hours before daylight, go home to watch football during the middle of the day and then go back to hunt until a few hours before dark.

Although hunters have different reasons for being drawn to the sport, Dumke said he hunts “for the meat.”

His roommate, freshman Brent Hangartner, also enjoys deer hunting for the meat. His family usually goes through the meat of four to five deer a year, he said.

There are other reasons, though, that Hangartner enjoys deer hunting.

“I do it because it’s a stress release – a way to get away from everything else and be in the woods,” Hangartner said.

He also said part of the allure of hunting lies in the feeling of power he gets from a rifle.

Thanks in part to Wisconsin’s T-zone hunting, which allows people to hunt during non-hunting season to control the deer population, Hangartner already has killed three deer.

He donated two of those deer heads to the Department of Natural Resources to test for chronic wasting disease. He said he is not concerned about the disease.

“They’ve had it out west for 30 to 40 years,” Hangartner said. “No one’s ever died or gotten sick from it. They haven’t linked it to anything that can harm people.”

Dumke agreed that there’s no proof of the disease actually harming humans, although he also has donated two deer heads to the DNR for testing.

Although disease test kits, which have not been approved by the government, are being sold to hunters at Gander Mountain stores, neither Dumke nor Hangartner said they would purchase one.

Wisconsin has surveyed deer for chronic wasting disease since 1999, according to the state DNR Web site. From the 2001 herd, three deer in Dane and Iowa counties were identified as having the disease.

The DNR site also stated that the World Health Organization has said there is no evidence the disease can infect humans, although animals with evidence of the disease should not be eaten. Colorado has monitored infected areas for 16 years and has not found the disease in any humans or cattle living in the area.