WI and FED Taxpayers give $764,000 http://www.wbay.com/global/story.asp?s=4490706&ClientType=Printable State reports nearly 700 licensed deer and elk farms WAUSAU, Wis. About 700 deer or elk farms are still licensed in Wisconsin.The number defies predictions of the industry's demise made four years ago when a deadly brain disease was discovered in the state's wild deer herd. But according to the state Agriculture Department, those farms contain thousands fewer animals than in the years before chronic wasting disease was discovered. The government itself had a hand in that. Ag Department spokeswoman Donna Gilson says state regulations led to the killing of 677 deer or elk on 17 different farms. They represent herds with at least one diseased animal, herds with a direct link to a diseased animal or herds near where the disease was discovered in wild deer. State and federal governments have paid about 765-thousand dollars to those producers to compensate them for their losses.