Posted on 05/28/2002 11:04:37 AM PDT by SJackson
Mt. Horeb, Wis. — Hunters and landowners took the bad news in stride at the first public meeting in a series of five to be held around the state regarding chronic wasting disease (CWD).
More than 1,000 people filled the Mt. Horeb High School gym on May 1 to learn about DNR proposals to eliminate the deer herd within the CWD core Eradication Zone, and reduce populations within the larger CWD Management Zone.
Scott Craven, chairman of the UW-Madison Department of Wildlife Ecology told the audience the state faces a serious and potentially disastrous problem. The problem is even more serious than in Colorado because CWD, an always fatal disease, is now in the heart of deer range where there are extremely high densities, he said. In addition, land ownership patterns in Wisconsin are different and complicate management.
“Unmanaged, CWD will continue to spread, and the infection rate will increase,” Craven said. “If we were lucky enough to catch CWD in the early stages of infection, we’ve been given the chance to limit the spread of the disease if not eliminate it in Wisconsin. If we seize the chance to act, and act using the best science, we will hopefully succeed. If we don’t, CWD could spread in Wisconsin, decimate the deer population and spread to adjoining states, and our deer hunting relatives will not judge us very kindly.” Craven cited an example from conservation legend Aldo Leopold’s writings calling for the temporary removal of the entire game population to prevent the spread of an infection. He concluded that Leopold would support the drastic measures called for in Wisconsin.
“There is sadly, and simply, no choice,” Craven said.
Craven noted that in 1954, only 24 deer were killed in Iowa County. And given a clean bill of health at some point, deer and deer hunting will return to the area. The problem began when three deer shot during the 2001 firearms deer season in Deer Management Unit 70A were found to have CWD. Following a kill of 516 deer in that area this spring, 11 more deer tested positive for CWD, or about 2 percent of those tested. Mike Miller, veterinarian for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, was impressed by the amount of interest at the Mt. Horeb meeting.
“You can be very proud of the DNR for its rapid response and rapid assembly of information to get a solid base of information on the disease,” he said. “Dismantling wildlife populations is not something that’s palatable to us in the wildlife profession, but it is a necessary step to try to get a handle on the disease. It’s a serious problem.” Miller said that CWD arose in Colorado 40 years ago and wildlife officials didn’t know then what they know now. Because it was left unmanaged, it spread to a much greater area. Miller said a recent outbreak of CWD on the western slope of Colorado among mule deer has caused Colorado wildlife staff to attempt to kill the entire deer population in the area, similar to plans in Wisconsin.
Dr. Julie Langenberg, DNR veterinarian, said computer models indicate, based on the 516 deer that were shot in the core area, that 10 years from now, if nothing is done, most of the adult deer in the focus area could be infected. That would lead to the collapse of the regional deer population.
Instead, the DNR is looking at the core area with about 1 percent prevalence of CWD and is recommending killing all deer in an attempt to eradicate CWD. Outside the core area, the DNR says it must take action in order to identify any positive cases and decrease the possibility of CWD spreading.
The core area extends nine miles from the center of the CWD positive deer locations and includes parts of five deer units. The outside area, the CWD Management Zone, includes 13 deer units where the goal will be to bring the population down to 10 to 15 deer per square mile.
“If, and likely when, we identify another positive case outside the surveillance area, we would establish another small eradication zone around that new case,” Langenberg said. Langenberg said the effort could take a minimum of five years.
“There are no easy answers with this disease,” she said. “There is no other model … that answers all of our questions.”
Langenberg said officials are looking at the problem from a statewide perspective, but there are a lot of holes in the DNR sampling program and some areas that have been sampled have not had enough animals to be able to say with statistical confidence that CWD is not there. Therefore, the DNR will try to sample many more deer throughout the state. The limiting factor will be laboratory capacity.
To test just the deer in the CWD core zone, the DNR may have to test 10,000 to 15,000 deer, and the ability to test the rest of the state will depend on the ability of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab and private labs.
Bill Vander Zouwen, DNR section chief of wildlife ecology, described the hunting regs the DNR believes are necessary to reduce and eradicate the deer herd in the core. “This is not just a DNR problem, it is all of ours and it won’t make a lot of people happy,” Vander Zouwen said. He and several of his colleagues have hunted on one farm in the core area for more than 20 years and admitted that it will be hard to take personally, as well as professionally, to eliminate the deer.
“While this makes us sick, it’s like a medical condition that requires a tougher treatment that makes us sicker temporarily. We must go for it because we want to have hope,” Vander Zouwen said.
Some of the proposed regulations seem radical, but they’re designed to eliminate the problem. The theory is that by shooting down the herd, sick animals will either be killed or die before they can transmit the disease to other animals.
The DNR is proposing an Eradication Zone that extends nine miles from the center of the CWD positive deer locations. The objective is to depopulate the herd within this zone. This zone includes parts of Units 70A, 75C, 75A, 76, and 70, or 287 square miles. “We believe it’s critical to use whatever we can to eliminate deer there,” Vander Zouwen said. “We want consistent regulations and hope to start May 6 with landowners shooting deer. It’s not uncommon for deer to disperse from 10 to 50 miles.”
Landowners who haven’t allowed hunting in the past are being asked to allow people to shoot deer on their land. As a last resort, they will be asked to allow sharpshooters access. “Most of the regulations are not decided yet, which is why we’re asking people to fill out questionnaires and let us know how they feel,” Vander Zouwen said. “Please return your questionnaires by May 18, so we can analyze them and make recommendations to the Natural Resources Board in June.”
People who couldn’t attend any of the meetings that were held in May in Mt. Horeb, Eau Claire, Rhinelander, Waukesha, or Green Bay, can fill it out on the: DNR’s web site.
The DNR is proposing:
• A general deer hunting season from Oct. 24 (the same as the opening day of Zone T units) through Jan. 31 in the zones.
• Landowners will receive permits and they can give permits to hunters to use on their land year-round. The landowner decides who to give tags to, and can decide when or where they can hunt.
• Several options of shooting deer include unlimited either-sex tags during the hunting season and earn-a-buck where the hunter can shoot an unlimited number of bucks after shooting an antlerless deer.
• Firearm restrictions. The DNR is considering whether to allow rifles in the zone (to be most efficient with the harvest), or restrict it to shotgun only. Vander Zouwen said shotguns have had higher accident rates than rifles the past nine years.
• Each deer shot within the CWD Management Zone must be registered within the zone, and each deer will be tested.
• To protect the rest of the state, the DNR is looking at carcass control regarding restrictions on moving whole carcasses out of the CWD Management Zone. It might allow venison, antlers, hides to be removed. The state also is looking at restrictions for carcasses coming from other CWD-positive areas of the U.S.
• Baiting and feeding would be banned within the CWD Management Zone. The DNR does not have authority to regulate feeding, but the Legislature is considering it. The restrictions are meant to reduce deer-to-deer contact.
Vander Zouwen said that Iowa County has already adopted a resolution to ban the feeding of deer, and Dane County is looking at a similar resolution.
• Require blaze orange for all hunters, other than waterfowl hunters. The DNR will encourage citizens to wear orange when in the field.
• The DNR doesn’t want small refuges, so it is committed to eradicating deer from state parks also in the zone.
Vander Zouwen said he knows that not everyone will want to keep their deer, and the question of disposal is being considered. Currently, that involves landfills, but the DNR is looking for other alternatives.
“If we are successful in eradicating the deer and controlling the disease, we know the deer will come back,” Vander Zouwen said. “This is our duty and our job as conservationists, as well as hunters.”
Craven wrapped up the formal presentation by saying, “This is a bitter pill to be sure, it’s easy to ask ‘why me?’ But, it is the hand we’re dealt and we’re going to do everything we can.”
During the question and answer session, animal protectionist Patricia Randolph held up a small toy deer, saying that people don’t kill everyone who has AIDS. The crowd gave an ovation to the moderator who moved on to the next question after Randolph had had sufficient time to make her point.
Most attendees appeared to be supportive of the DNR plan, though several landowners said they weren’t convinced of the need for the eradication. One woman said she wanted to know what other alternatives the DNR considered before deciding to eradicate the deer.
Dr. Clarence Siroky, DATCP veterinarian, told a questioner that with a herd contained within a fence, there were many things (such as vaccination, isolation, etc.) that can be done with disease outbreaks. But, with a wild population, many traditional tools are eliminated.
Other questions demonstrated that a good number of people don’t believe that DATCP has done all it can to prevent the spread of disease.
One person asked Miller how Colorado’s response compares to Wisconsin’s proposal.
“Our (Colorado’s) response was inadequate (in hindsight),” he said. “It took us a number of years to recognize the problem. Had we dealt with it right away, we might not be dealing with the problem today.”
Why the concern?
Vander Zouwen reviewed many of the reasons why people are concerned about CWD. They include potential effect on human health, effect on livestock health, participation by hunters in the deer hunt, herd growth if people don’t hunt, effect on the economy, agricultural damage, timber damage, changes involving meat processing, DNR revenue losses, reductions of property values, deer mortality, and collapse of the deer population. Vander Zouwen said he’s already hearing from some hunters who say they are going to give up deer hunting this fall because of CWD.
“I’m really disappointed to hear that,” he said. “This, above all times, is a time for hunters to shoot those deer to help reduce the spread of the disease. We must use all of the tools that are at our disposal to be successful.”
Barnes challenging deer kill
Retired veterinarian John Barnes, of Verona, said that a group of citizens, in coordination with the Alliance for Animals, is drawing up legal papers to stop the proposed deer kill near Mt. Horeb. Barnes, who has been active in Alliance for Animals and helped to protest deer hunting seasons in the past by having dummies — representing hunters — strapped on cars driving through Madison during past hunting seasons, said the group plans to challenge the DNR in court.
Barnes said the DNR has not shown how the kill will be effective and he’s concerned about the safety of citizens. He says there’s no scientific basis for what the DNR is planning. He said that CWD will always be in the soil now that it is here and there is no way it can be contained. If the DNR did not kill the deer, some of them would eventually develop an immunity, but with the kill those animals will be eliminated.
Barnes claims the DNR is ignoring focus groups with citizens that it held earlier this spring.
Barnes operates Prairie Spirit Wildlife Sanctuary near Verona.
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It's suspected it came from diseased deer purchased from a Colo. game farm. The third link has quite a bit of info on CWD in Wi. and links to other states and sites.
3-4 wolves would become 40 overnight and they would clean them deer right out to a manageable carrying capacity.
I know there's alot of snowmachines down there. You all could run wolves down with ar's on snowmachines all winter long, loads of fun; and more sport than you'd think.
Someone will have to finish the job.
I believe the state will eventually need to hire hunters or pay healthy bounties to get all the deer in the area.
All the game farm stock checked clean. One owner in the area killed all(~53) his deer and no trace of it has been found in the game farms. How it was introduced is still a mystery.
The outbreak appears to be quite close to Madison, a sanctuary for the ALF/ELF ecoterrorists.
Any word on if this can jump species to dairy cattle?
By the way, in a recent poll of deer hunters, 36% said they would pass on this year's deer hunt becuase the DNR has remained mum on the safety of the meat issue.
AS for the wolves, there are some way up north and they are as another poster stated, lazy, eating road kill, cows, cats and poodles instead of tracking down deer. Same is true with the darn coyotes...they are really nasty in the urban fringes with tied up dogs.
I thought I read that was the first idea, that "maybe" pre Colo. importation ban deer (pre 99?) brought it here and transmitted it to the wild herd. I think it's a wild guess myself. It's an interesting topic, doesn't worry me much though. I hunt in 54A (central Adams), which isn't that far, and I'm amazed that we're a non T zone, with hunters choice levels of 4 or 5 years ago. I see more deer than I ever have.
Oh well, a safe place for the Madison herd to move to.
See the Chronic Wasting Disease and Wisconsin Deer Index link I put at the bottom of the article, or the link in ten. Lots of good crosslinks there.
I don't think they really have any idea if it jumps species. Any more than they have any evidence humans can contract it, other than eating raw deer brain, which I no longer do.
Anyway, the disease has been in cattle (I assume dairy too) for years. IMO this is a serious wildlife management (and agricultural too, I guess, look at the Euros and mad cow) issue, and the WI DNR is great at that.
Risk to humans, for me it's nannystatism.
From your mouth to the DNRs ears. I'm amazed that they're reducing the harvest this year in some area zones (OK, mine). No one apply.
AS for the wolves, there are some way up north and they are as another poster stated, lazy, eating road kill, cows, cats and poodles instead of tracking down deer. Same is true with the darn coyotes...they are really nasty in the urban fringes with tied up dogs.
Lot's of wolves in Neceedah (sp?), not that far to relocate. I noticed earlier in the year that the DNR placed on their longer term agenda both the possibility of an Elk season, and also wolf, if and when they're removed from threatened.
My three dogs, I tell them to hang out together, preferably with a neighbor dog, but they're still no match for wolves.
From this site and other research I understood that VJCD and nVJCD were the two forms of human contracted "mad cow" disease gaining attention in the medical community.It was estimated VJCD had an incubation period in humans of between 20 and 40 years.Always fatal.Only diagnosed by brain autopsy. nVJCD appears to be an accelerated variant with a 3-15 year incubation in humans.
The old wasting diseases in farm and wild animals have appeared in nature in different forms for years,scrapie in sheep for instance.They most popular theory is that the disease mutated when scrapie infected sheep were ground up as protein and fed to cows,a limited number of cows fed this diet mutated the disease to a stronger variant and were in turn fed to other cows.As I understand it, the beef industry in England was devastateded.This did not stop the practice of using British diseased cows as feed for many years, even though a total ban was implicated. Tracing the sources/recipients of the diseased feed is almost impossible.
I can readily believe a few stupid ALF/ELF types got a "real good deal on feed" and fed it to the "poor hungry deer" in this country to "save" the poor deer populations.
As I stated before, I am not an expert in this field, but I believe either through malice or pure stupidity, the ALF/ELF types will be shown to have a role in the destruction of our animal food supply.
Death in humans from this disease will either explode to epidemic proportions in England in the next 5 years or will be shown to have been contained.We all take our chances based on what we know/believe to be the truth.
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