MONTPELIER, Vt. – The Legislature is pushing through a proposal it hopes will prepare Vermont to fend off a looming threat from chronic wasting disease, which has been found in domesticated deer in New York state.

What concerns Vermont lawmakers and officials the most is the possibility that infected captive deer in New York could have come into contact with wild deer. If that proves true, the disease could be particularly difficult to control.

“We would worry for both New York and Vermont if deer had been released that had been exposed,” said Craig McLaughlin, Vermont’s director of wildlife. In that case, “it may be very, very difficult – if not impossible – to eradicate that disease.”

Agriculture Secretary Steve Kerr agreed.

“You can’t really go out and depopulate a wild herd,” he said. “If they find it [in wild deer], they have got a real mess. I guess we all do.”

That’s one reason the Vermont House suspended its rules Friday to pass a bill establishing rules to help regulate captive deer herds. The bill will go to the Senate, which is also expected to expedite it.

“We need to get a handle on Vermont’s captive deer population yesterday,” said Steven Adams, R-Hartland, chairman of the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee, which co-drafted the legislation with the House Agriculture Committee. “Currently we have no way of knowing exactly how many animals are held on deer farms.”

Chronic wasting disease is a terminal illness affecting the brains of deer and elk and is related to mad cow disease and scrapie in sheep. While the disease has not been known to infect humans and it is unclear exactly how it spreads, it has decimated deer herds in the Midwest and West.

One of the five infected deer in two captive New York herds apparently came from a captive herd in Arietta, N.Y., in Hamilton County in the mid-1990s.

There are roughly 30 farms with red deer, fallow deer, elk or reindeer in the state. It is illegal in Vermont to keep captive white-tailed deer.