Chronic Wasting Disease Confirmation May Lead to Harmful Reactions

DAVE HENDERSON Outdoors
4-5-05

The confirmation last week of Chronic Wasting Disease in two deer from captive herds in Oneida County may be the tip of a catastrophic iceberg or merely two isolated scary incidents. It's too early to call either way but each would be harmful in several ways.

Remember that just the threat of the disease killed the proposed elk restoration program. If the disease has now spread to the wild deer population, we can expect wholesale slaughter in an attempt to contain it. If, like Mad Cow Disease in Canada, it is restricted to one or two animals, we'll stay vigilant, but the hunting license sales -- which have already dropped by more than 25 percent in the last 20 years -- are still likely to plummet.

Other states will no longer allow their residents to bring deer or elk meat or parts home from New York, which will hurt our guides, outfitters and deer farmers.

Either scenario will have an adverse impact on the Venison Donation Coalition, which has distributed more than 100,000 pounds of venison to needy families in each of the last two years and nearly 250 tons since its inception at the turn of the century.

The Oneida County animals were the first positive cases of devastating wildlife disease confirmed east of Minnesota or Illinois. Both states discovered the disease in single captive herds a couple of years ago and
have found no CWD among wild deer. Wisconsin, however, is a different story. Since the disease entered that state -- the all-time leader in Boone & Crockett deer entries -- through a captive herd, it spread to the
point where thousands of wild deer were exterminated in concentrated areas to keep it from spreading. The next season, hunter interest took a nose dive with tens of thousands not buying licenses, when do-it-yourself CWD detection kits sold like hotcakes to the general public.

CWD, by the way, is a transmissible disease that affects the brain and central nervous system of deer and elk. There is no evidence that CWD, which has been found in several other states and has been the subject of testing in New York and other eastern states since 2000, is linked to disease in humans or domestic livestock other than deer and elk.

The Oneida County animals that tested positive were a 6-year-old doe that was slaughtered and a 2 1/2-year-old buck that died of respiratory problems. A total of 681 captive deer and elk and 3,457 wild deer in New York had been tested and found negative prior to the discovery.

Preliminary tests performed at the New York State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell University determined the presumptive positive, which was confirmed late Thursday by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.

The herds were quarantined by the state's Department of Agriculture and Markets and will be slaughtered and examined. Other herds have also been quarantined and are being investigated. Wild deer in proximity of the effected herds will also be monitored intensively.

To date, CWD has been found in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming and in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

New York State has 433 establishments raising 9,600 deer and elk in captivity. In the wild, DEC estimates there are approximately one million deer statewide.

Henderson's outdoors columns appear in the Press & Sun-Bulletin on Tuesdays and his Field Notes columns on Sundays. Write to him at Henderson Outdoors, 202 Prospect St., Endicott, NY 13760, or fax information to 785-8337.