Past CWD Updates
April
8, 2005
January
12, 2005
January
3, 2005
December
3, 2004
October
18, 2004
April
8, 2005
Late breaking
news is that an additional 3 deer from the index herd in Oneida County, New York have tested positive for CWD. This brings the total to 5 for the state,
4 on the index facility and 1 on another facility, all in Oneida County.
Iowa DNR
reports that they tested 4,579 whitetail deer in 2004 with none of the
animals testing positive. Samples
were collected from all 99 counties in Iowa; however the majority – roughly 3,500 – was
taken in the seven Mississippi River border counties. Emphasis was placed on that area
due to the prevalence and proximity of CWD in Wisconsin and Illinois. Since
2000, the Iowa DNR has tested more than
12,300 deer; none have tested positive.
Two men in
Minnesota have plead guilty to illegal trafficking in white-tailed deer and
face fines up to $250,000 and 5 year federal prison sentences. Investigators from the Minnesota DNR
and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service charged the men with the illegal
transport and sale of more than 30 live deer between 1999 and 2002. Apparently, tens of thousands of dollars
changed hands during the sales.
Several aspects of the case are still under investigation and
federal indictments have been handed down to an Oklahoma shooting preserve operator. The investigation continues in at lease
two other states with additional federal prosecution a possibility.
South
Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks reports that they have received the results of
2004 testing for 2,687 cervids 2 from Wind Cave National Park pending.
They tested 698 elk with 2 positive, 751 mule deer with 3 positive,
and 1,238 whitetails with 4 positive.
The most recent positive was a female elk from Custer State Park, the fist positive cervid
from the Park, which was collected due to clinical signs being
observed. Two whitetails and one
mule deer from Wind Cave National Park are included in the totals above.
A second
case of CWD has been confirmed in Oneida County, New York. This
animal was a four to five year old whitetail that had died from aspiration
pneumonia and a sample sent in for testing.
The animal had apparently been on the index farm then shipped to
another facility in the county.
Currently, the index herd and the six other associated herds
including the second positive herd are under quarantine. All animals
remaining in the index herd and the herd with the second confirmed positive
will be depopulated and tested for CWD. The investigation to determine the
source of the infection is ongoing.
Both facilities are from the area around Westmoreland, New York and have been depopulated.
The first
white-tailed deer diagnosed with chronic wasting disease in Oneida County, New York was one of the deer donated to the Verona, New York Fire Department and served at its Annual
Sportsmen's Feast on Sunday, March 13, an Oneida County Health Department
spokesman said today. The deer was donated and consumed before the Health
Department knew it had the disease, according to the agencies spokesperson.
Public health officials are trying to contact all attendees at the feast to
reassure them that the danger of them becoming ill from the venison is very
minimal. (Look for a lot of media
coverage of this incident).
The
Pennsylvania Game Commission reports that they have received the results of
3,699 deer samples submitted for CWD testing during the 2004 hunting
season. All samples were returned
with CWD not detected. They also
report that 32 elk were tested with no CWD detected. The elk samples also were tested for
brucellosis and bovine tuberculosis and found to be free from these
diseases. During the last four
hears, 162 elk and 6,259 deer have been tested with no positive results.
The Utah
Division of Wildlife Resources tested 3,067 samples from deer and elk taken
during last fall's hunting seasons. Seven mule deer tested positive for the
disease all from the La Sal Mountains in southeastern Utah, an area where the disease has been confirmed
in the past.
The Ohio DNR reports that tests
from 656 deer submitted for CWD testing during the 2004-hunting season
failed to detect any CWD in that state.
January 12, 2005
The memorial service for Tom Thorne and Beth Williams was held in
Laramie, Wyoming on January 5.
For a moving description of that service, go to www.wildlifedisease.org and
follow the link. There is also
information there for contributing to the Wildlife Disease Association for
a tribute to these two outstanding people.
A
third case of BSE has been confirmed in Alberta, Canada. The latest incident is in a 7-year-old
animal and is believed to be unrelated to the case announced last week. No
part of the animal entered the human or animal food chain. In a related
happening, a group of Montana ranchers have filed suit in
federal court in an attempt to overturn the opening of the U. S. border to Canadian cattle
and beef products. USDA is sending a
team of experts to Canada to investigate the latest
finding.
A reminder: The second international CWD symposium will be held
in Madison, Wisconsin July
12-14, 2005. The Wisconsin DNR and the National
Wildlife Health Lab in Madison are organizing this event.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has completed the testing
of 5, 735 samples collected during the November firearm season for
deer. We found an additional 29
animals positive for CWD. Most of
these were in the panhandle, however, one was in Hall County near Grand Island and one in Arthur County near the town of Arthur. These
two represent an eastward movement of detected positives.
A trail in Indiana is underway where a deer farm operator is
accused of sedating animals with drugs prior to clients showing up to kill
an animal. A grand jury in July
indicted the operator and his manager on charges of illegally selling and
transporting wildlife across state lines and facilitating the illegal
killing of wildlife. The indictment also charged them with allowing
unlicensed hunters to use illegal weapons and bait to hunt the deer. The manager has agreed to a plea bargain
and will testify against the owner.
He stated that the owner personally set the price to be charged,
ranging from $4,000 to $20,000 per buck.
He then described how deer were tranquilized and moved to small
fenced-in pens for customers to choose their own bucks, which then were
given reversal drugs. "Hunters
were then taken to specific hunting tree stands in these high-fence pens
and allowed to hunt the selected deer," the manager stated.
Another interesting
wildlife disease note is that a hunter in Michigan has been confirmed as becoming infected with
bovine TB thought a cut on his hand when he cleaned a deer he had
harvested. The man killed the deer
in Alcona County in October 2004 and sought medical attention
after spotting telltale lesions in the animal's chest cavity. The man has not been publicly identified,
but is being treated and is expected to recover. Human cases usually are caused by
breathing infected barn air or drinking unpasteurized
milk from a sick cow. It is extremely rare to get the disease through cutaneous transmission.
January 3, 2005
The CWD world is still reeling from the loss of two very good
people, Tom Thorne and Beth Williams.
At this time, I do not see anyone who can step up and take Beth’s
place in our profession nor do I see anyone with Tom’s background and
expertise replacing him. This loss
is felt as a deep personal loss by many of us but we must not let this loss
diminish our efforts towards combating CWD.
The best memorial we can have for these two wonderful people is a
renewed commitment to learning all we can about CWD and other wildlife diseases
and carrying on their dedication to and passion for the profession. May God grant them peace and give us
understanding of their loss.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency reports an additional case of
BSE in Alberta. The
infected animal was born in 1996, prior to the 1997 ban on meat and bone
meal. No part of the animal entered
the human or animal food chain. The
CFIA is now concentrating on testing animals that are recently born
offspring of the infected animal and cattle born on the same farm within a
year of the infected animal. The
USDA has announced that his recent finding will not alter the recently
announced classification of Canada as a minimal risk country and the
plan to resume trade in beef products between the U. S. and Canada.
Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks reports that a total of
2,091 samples from the 2004-hunting season have been tested and
no evidence of CWD has been detected. Although 26 samples are still
pending and they will be collecting more samples at Gardiner during the
late hunt, unless there are some real surprises agency biologists feel
that they have escaped CWD again this year.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission tested 5,735 deer from the
2005 firearm season for CWD. Of
these samples, 28 tested positive for the disease. New counties where CWD
was found include Hall, Arthur, and Duel.
The main finding was the positive in Hall County near Grand Island, Nebraska (reported in last update).
Commission staff collected an additional 67 deer from the immediate vicinity
of this positive with no additional positives being found. Sample
collection will continue during the archery, muzzleloader, and late firearm
seasons in the Panhandle and Hall county areas.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources reports 11 new cases
of CWD from fall testing. There are
still some tests pending. The total
of confirmed cases in Illinois is now 76 animals, all from Boone,
Winnebago, McHenry, and DeKalb counties.
December 3, 2004
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department reports finding CWD for the
first time on the east slope of the Big Horn Mountains in the north-central part of the state. One whitetail buck and one mule deer buck
from the area have tested positive for the disease. Officials are encouraging hunters in the area
to submit the heads of their harvested animals for testing. If enough animals are not tested from the
hunting season, agency personnel may collect additional animals to assist
in determining the prevalence of the disease in that area. So far this hunting season, Wyoming officials have tested approximately 3,269
deer and elk with 70 positives being found.
Besides the positives in the Big Horn mountains, 2 other new areas
were found to have the illness present: southwest of Laramie and near Elk Mountain.
The government of South Korea reports finding additional cases of CWD in
farmed cervids in that country. The latest finding is from four elk from
a farm in Milyang, South Gyeongsang
province. Government officials have depopulated the remaining 78 elk
present on the farm. The
CWD-infected elk were the offspring of animals raised on a farm in the
southern Kyungsang province after being brought
in from Canada,
the Agricultural Ministry said in a statement. The first case of CWD in South
Korea
was in 2001 and was found in an elk imported from Canada.
The Minnesota DNR reports
that they have collected 12,500 samples from hunters for CWD testing this
year. To date, they have received
results from 682 tests; all results were CWD not detected.
The South
Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks reports collecting 2,001 samples to date with
collections continuing. All results
to date are not detected on 476 elk, 83 mule deer and 258 white-tailed
deer.
The
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission collected 5,735 samples during the
recently completed firearms deer season.
Testing is now underway at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. Results
will be reported, as they are available.
According to reports
from the Wisconsin DNR, as of Nov 30,
approximately 11,500 heads had been collected in the CWD management zones.
Sixteen new CWD-positive deer have been found in 2004, which brings the
total number of positive deer to 339.
Updated figures are expected daily as work continues and new totals
will be continually posted on the DNR
website.
October 18, 2004
The Canadian
Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre has released the expert scientific panel
report titled “Chronic Wasting Disease in Canadian Wildlife: An Expert
Opinion on the Epidemiology and Risks to Wild Deer”. It is available on their web site at http://wildlife1.usask.ca/ccwhc2003/Publications/CWD%20Expert%20Report%20Final%20-%2020040804.pdf.
I recommend this report to
everyone; it contains some good information and outstanding
recommendations.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has confirmed another
positive mule deer from the La Sal Mountains in the SE part of the
state. This makes a total of 7 deer
from the La Sal Mountains that have tested positive. Biologists believe
that the animal was killed by a mountain lion prior to being found and
tested.
Two elk harvested by public hunters on public land in Utah turned out to be escapes from a nearby game ranch. The two young bulls were part of a group
of three or four which escaped over a snow bridge this past winter. The animals were originally from an elk
raising facility in Montrose, Colorado.
A study conducted under very
controlled conditions in Colorado documented the transmission of CWD via infected carcass
parts. This study was in a closed
situation with a large amount of infected carcass parts present. The likelihood of wild deer or elk
becoming infected with CWD by contracting sufficient quantities of
infectious material from the remaining parts of carcasses transported by
hunters seems remote; with the possible exception of situations where such
materials may be improperly discarded in large quantity, such as by game
processing and taxidermy facilities.
However, it seems prudent to educate hunters on the potential and
the proper methods of disposing of carcass parts (landfills, incineration,
digesters).
The word from USDA-APHIS on their captive cervid
movement regulations is that the comment period produced such a large
amount of comments that they revamped major portions of the proposal. The revised proposal is currently at OMB
for review and approval prior to being issued in the Federal Register.
At the recent 19th International Congress of Zoology in Beijing, China, several discussions were held with individuals from the Chinese Academy of Science reference wildlife disease surveillance and
monitoring. Their main concern at
this time is highly pathogenic avian influenza. They are also concerned that West Nile
Virus may show up in Asia via migratory birds.
Another interest they have is in testing native cervids
in China for CWD. Work will continue
with them to attempt to get provide them training in sample collection
techniques.
