Two of the 297 Penrose ranch elk slaughtered by the government last week to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease tested positive for the disease, the Colorado Department of Agriculture said Monday.

The two elk -- a 2-year-old heifer and a 7-year-old cow -- account for an infection rate of less than 1 percent.

The ranch owner said that shows the slaughter was unnecessary, but the government maintained there was no alternative.

"This is an extremely unfortunate situation for animal health and our agricultural industry," Don Ament, the Agriculture Department's commissioner, said in a statement. "Until a reliable live test for CWD is developed, this is the best option in controlling the spread of the disease."

The elk, taken from Ron Walker's Top Rail Ranch in Penrose and euthanized at the Phantom Landfill near Caon City, were killed after a 4-yearold bull killed by a hunter last winter on Walker's 2,800- acre hunting preserve tested positive for the disease.

About 100 elk at the hunting preserve south of Caon City will be slaughtered and tested at the end of 2006 under a "depopulation" agreement reached by Walker and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The elk killed last week were on a ranch miles from the hunting preserve, but the three that tested positive were born at the ranch.

"So where did this disease come from? How did it get there? It's in the wild," Walker said. "We don't know how or if it's transmitted."

He said killing his herd was pointless under a policy that renders little, if any, information about the disease and how it spreads.

The slaughter, he said, "had nothing to do with stopping the spread of the disease, had nothing to do with anything other than killing a bunch of good animals and taking them to a dump where no good comes from it."

Chronic wasting disease is a neurological disease that attacks the brains of infected animals, causing them to become emaciated, display abnormal behavior and die. No concrete evidence shows that the disease is a risk to human health, the state Department of Agriculture said, although some experts say the disease poses a threat to humans.

In Colorado, testing has been required in domestic elk deaths since 1998.

The USDA, whose strategy is to kill herds it believes might be infected and test them, paid Walker far less than the $750,000 to $900,000 that state officials reported last week, Walker said.

Declining to name the figure, he said his settlement equated to "10 cents on the dollar of what I have invested." The USDA could not be reached for comment.

Walker's herd was the first in the state that has been slaughtered since 2002, when the government killed about 3,200 privately owned elk in northeastern Colorado in efforts to halt the disease and learn more about it. Of those, about 32 tested positive.

Walker's bull also marked the farthest south in Colorado the disease has been detected.

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