LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources is suing a Louisville hunter for nearly $2,000, and it should serve as a warning for other hunters. 

According to state officials, 47-year-old Nicholas J. Behringer admitted to a violation of a state regulation for importing a deer head from another state that was infected with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a highly infectious disease that kills deer and elk.

Behringer paid a $50 fine and court costs in Shelby County District Court on Jan. 3. Now he's facing a lawsuit -- and it's the first time the state has sought civil damages against a hunter for importing a diseased deer carcass.

The department filed a complaint April 26 in Franklin County District Court seeking $1,900 in damages. That amount is to cover the cost of the investigation, testing, prosecution and disposal of the infected carcass.

Dr. Christine Casey, the state wildlife veterinarian for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife said CWD has to be taken seriously. 

"That's another thing I think a lot of people don't understand about the disease, it's always fatal," Casey said. 

Casey said the disease attacks the nervous system and is easily transmissible and incurable.

"It's an abnormal disease in the sense of being a protein," Casey explained. "This is the hard part for most people to understand you think of viruses or bacteria or parasites. This is actually a protein."

Casey emphasized that CWD has not yet been detected in deer in Kentucky, and officials want to keep it that way. That's one of the reasons the state has strict rules about bringing hunting carcass across state lines.

"One of the biggest issues with CWD is once it's introduced, it's almost impossible to eradicate it and so that's why, you know, our main goal is to prevent the introduction," Casey said. 

The infection has been found in 30 other states, including Wisconsin, the state where Behringer killed the infected deer before bringing the intact head to a Kentucky taxidermist. 

The taxidermist then alerted authorities. 

"What we think is happening in terms of transmission is that it's direct contact, meaning nose to nose, maybe you know behaviors of deer, they they make scratches, or they're very communal, and they lick each other."

The Department says it has freezer drops-offs across the state if hunters want to get their deer heads tested.

For more information about the department's efforts to prevent the spread of CWD, click here.

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