FRANKFORT - Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources law enforcement officers seized three illegal elk Tuesday and cited a northern Kentucky man for violating the state's deer and elk importation ban.

Roy Fritz, 55, of Verona, faces three counts in Boone District Court, November 7, of possessing elk without the appropriate permits. Additional charges relating to transporting elk into the state may follow as the investigation continues.

"I don't think he fully grasped the seriousness of bringing those animals into the state," said KDFWR Lt. Bobby Newman.  "He told us that he hoped to raise them for a while and then turn them loose."

A 2002 Governor's Executive Order, intended to stop the rapid spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) at the Kentucky state line, makes it illegal for any person to transport live deer or elk into Kentucky. 

CWD is a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE), the deer and elk equivalent of Mad Cow disease. The recent discovery of CWD in West Virginia and New York extends the disease's spread to 14 states and two Canadian provinces and has wildlife biologists alarmed. 

The disease was discovered in a captive herd in Colorado more than three decades ago. It was contained in that small area for 30 years, but began its spread in the last decade as deer farmers across the country stepped up interstate transport in their efforts to grow their operations and trophy animals.

Newman said Fritz bought the three elk at an auction in Lima, Ohio last Tuesday and brought them to Boone County. He said they remained on the livestock trailer until Sunday when they were moved to a small pen which had been assembled from fence gate sections. He was joined by officers Chris Fossitt, Dennis Sharon and Dennis Davis and wildlife biologists Brian Clark and Clay Smitson Tuesday in seizing the animals.

All three elk were euthanized and taken to the University of Kentucky Diagnostic Laboratory  for analysis.

"We must protect our white-tailed deer and free-ranging elk herds from this disease," said KDFWR Commissioner Dr. Jon Gassett. 

"Kentucky's deer herd ranks in the country's top three and we have the largest elk herd in the eastern United States. We simply cannot relax our vigilance now.

"It takes only one slip -- one infected animal slipping past us -- and we will be looking at some serious and expensive problems," he said.