CWD increase

[josie1918]

This is rather lengthy, but since hunting season is around the corner thought everyone who may not be aware of this disease should be.


OUTDOORS: CWD state list grows by two
DOUG HUDDLE - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD Buzz up!
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Virginia and North Dakota have moved into the ranks of those states that have found chronic wasting disease in their free-roaming ungulate (deer, elk or moose) populations.

The upshot for Washington hunters is that wildlife (ungulates) harvested in those two states, as well as the 13 other states and provinces previously placed on the list, are now embargoed and may not be brought into Washington except in certain highly restricted forms.

CWD - a progressive deterioration of the brain in certain hooved wild animals caused by a complex protein - has slipped into relative obscurity since it first manifested itself in the 1980s. At first, concerns were that whatever caused it also could infect humans or that free-roaming deer and elk populations might be decimated by it.


Once infection has occurred, there is no known treatment that will block prions from altering brain tissue. Afflicted wild, free-roaming animals grow progressively weaker as their brains deteriorate, eventually dying what most people would consider to be a grotesque, horrible death.

To this point, neither of the two aforementioned fears have been realized, but in states such as Wyoming the evidence is CWD continues to slowly spread with almost one third of the state now having actively diseased or infected deer and elk.

Research has found that the CWD prion, smaller than a virus but not considered a living organism, is robust and once introduced will remain latent in the environment for a considerable length of time (decades at least).

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed declaring prions, aka proteinaceous infectious particles, officially to be pests so that companies may start research and development of chemical compounds for use on non-living surfaces.

COPING WITH CWD

States with CWD in deer, elk and moose populations have imposed strict rules on the butchering of hunter-harvested big game animals as well as disposal of potentially contaminated central nervous system and other body parts (among them brain, spinal column and spleen) by hunters.

In CWD game management units, typically, the disposal of unusable or potentially prion-ridden body parts must be done in-place, buried in the field or forest where the animal was killed. Hunters also are allowed to throw such items in a registered public garbage disposal site within the GMU.

States also require that all bones and lymph glands be removed from meat and all soft tissue be expunged from cranial mounts and teeth before those items are moved out of a CWD-managed zone.

These states also carry out required or volitional (complimentary) testing for hunters of harvested deer, elk and moose to survey the frequency of CWD occurrence within a hot zone, the spread of the disease or simply for hunters who are concerned about eating meat from possibly infected animals.

On that point, both national (CDC) and international (WHO) health organizations indicate that ongoing monitoring and research has yet to link chronic wasting disease to humans, though a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, occasionally occurs and apparently is caused by a separate and distinct complex protein.

FORESTALLING CWD'S SPREAD

Washington, among the yet-to-have-a-CWD-outbreak states, has imposed strict rules on what hunters, after going on an out-of-state safari, can import in the way of wild big game products from CWD states.

As of now, if you successfully bag a deer, elk or moose in any of the 15 states, you may legally bring back only:

- Boned-out meat that was de-boned on the state or province in which the animal was killed.

- Skulls and detached antlers, antlers on the skull plate or upper canine teeth (bugler, whistlers or ivories) sans all soft tissue.

- Hides and capes without heads attached.

- Laboratory or diagnostic research tissue samples.

- Finished taxidermy mounts.

Bringing deer, elk or moose products or body parts other than these into Washington from any of the 15 jurisdictions risks a gross misdemeanor charge, which, upon conviction, could cost you up to $5,000 in a fine or one year in jail. If you want to read the full text of the state statute, it's RCW 77.15.290.

If you hunt successfully in a non-CWD state, have your game sampled for testing but depart with the whole, halved or quarter carcass before the results c0me back, when you are notified that you indeed bagged a CWD animal, you have 24 hours to notify Washington fish and wildlife authorities you brought potentially contaminated and legally banned parts into the state.

States routinely exchange this type of information, so your interstate gambit won't remain a secret for long.

Hunters who are found not to have made this call are guilty of violating RCW 77.15.160, which is a punishable infraction.

In the first year, several cases of the blatant importation of potentially elk and deer body parts came to the attention of WDFW enforcement authorities, including one here in Whatcom County that may still have state authorities crossing their fingers.

Given the prion's near-indestructibility, if that one animal's remains were a carrier, the disease could pop up in our deer or elk 10years from now.

Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming plus the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are now on the North American CWD list and those are ranks that the state of Washington does not want to join.

PREVENTION IS WORTH IT

Since this is an evolving phenomenon, the full consequences of CWD are not yet known or even calculable.

However, states such as Wisconsin and Illinois are now actively considering herd size reduction programs for their white-tailed populations in really hot CWD management areas.

Wyoming is spending substantial amount of money investigating the disease to determine how to contain it in its prized deer and elk populations.

Outbreaks force states into steep and expensive learning curves to be able to make management decisions. Costly monitoring and testing absorbs funds and staff time that might otherwise be put to other more desirable and positive uses.

As is the case with many misfortunes in the human experience, prevention (of the spread of CWD) is the least expensive and most sensible approach.

Hunters have a moral and civic responsibility to do their part.

Doug Huddle, the Bellingham Herald's outdoors correspondent is retired from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and has, since 1983, written a weekly fishing and hunting column that appears Fridays. Read his blog and contact him at http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/outdoors/.



Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/08 ... z0xAu7hVNN