By Colonel Mike Abell
Introduction:
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is an always-fatal disease
found in a familiar family of animals called cervids. Cervids are
very simply – mammals of the deer family or scientifically classified
into the family Cervidae. To date, it has been found in wild
or captive cervids in 25 states and 3 Canadian provinces but not
yet in Kentucky. It can be transmitted through animal to animal
contact, contact with body fluids or feces left on the landscape,
contact with an animal carcass left on the landscape, and indirectly
through soil contaminated by any of the above.
It is not caused by a virus or bacteria, but by an irregularly
formed protein prion. The prions are very hard to destroy and
can survive on the landscape for years. The prion infection also
takes years to kill the animal by causing healthy protein prions
already in the animal to become irregularly formed. The irregularly
formed prions attack the nervous system of an infected animal,
which animal then becomes a vector of the disease for a
number of years before it succumbs to CWD. The infected deer
or elk do not become visually symptomatic for at least two
years, which is why this disease is problematic to hunters. It
would be very easy for one to kill an infected deer or elk and
have no idea it is infected because they show no outward signs
of the disease.
CWD has not been shown to infect humans. There have
been national cases where large groups of people have eaten
CWD infected deer. They are being monitored for the disease
and so far they are not infected. Notwithstanding those results,
if you are hunting in a CWD infected area, experts advise you to
have the deer or elk tested prior to eating it. The disease was
first discovered in a captive mule deer facility run by the Colorado
Division of Wildlife Research in Fort Collins in 1967. Researchers
have been working on a cure ever since and they are making
progress. There have been many false claims and internet
hoaxes about a cure, but to date there is not one. Currently the
best defense is prevention.
Position paper published on the Legislation Action website:
Before we discuss deer hunting, we must discuss the overall
importance of hunting in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Hunting
is a significant portion of our heritage and culture. President
Theodore Roosevelt spoke of the “democracy of hunting,” which
meant that any American, regardless of race, creed, ethnicity,
economic class or profession can hunt and hunt successfully. We
believe hunting is one of the last cords that bind our urban and
rural populations to the natural world around us. Hunting is also
a major economic driver for the Commonwealth, with an overall
annual economic impact of approximately $1.5 billion-dollars.
Deer hunting in particular has a $770 million dollar annual economic
impact on the Commonwealth.
These facts cannot be understated and must be always preeminent
in our minds as we discuss the future of hunting in the
Commonwealth.
Our natural environment now includes the reality of Chronic
Wasting Disease (CWD). This position statement is not meant to
educate the reader on what CWD is but to publicly state the position
of the Kentuckiana
Chapter of Safari Club International
(KYSCI) on
hunting in a CWD environment.
Anyone who
wishes to become more
educated on exactly what
CWD is can do so at
www.cwd-info.org. KYSCI
believes that all future
decisions about our deer
and elk herds must be
made in the context of
our hunting heritage, the
hunting economy and CWD. All three should carry equal weight
during the decision-making process, but they must each be underpinned
by scientific evidence and robust public comment. The
science must be both ecological and economical. The robust public
comment must generate a proactive long-term dialogue that
establishes lines of communication with individual hunters, hunting
clubs, conservation organizations, wildlife societies and
species-specific foundations.
The Chronic Wasting Disease Response Plan for the Kentucky
Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) is detailed,
deliberate, logical and executable. KYSCI finds the plan
to have only two major flaws.
The first flaw is that the plan is a RESPONSE plan. We recommend
the plan be revised to include prevention and be retitled
a “Prevention and Response Plan.” The KDFWR has yet to detect
a case of chronic wasting disease in the Commonwealth and we
believe that significant steps can be taken to delay or even prevent
the disease’s manifestation here. The tenents we recommend
be included in the prevention plan are as follows:
The KDFWR Law Enforcement Division should establish random
check stations along
major thoroughfares with
bordering CWD positive
states during their deer
seasons. People only
comply with laws and
regulations that are enforced.
The passage of
KAR 2:095 which banned
the importation of cervid
parts from CWD positive
states is one step, but it
is a passive step. Currently, a violation of KAR 2:095 is likely to
happen only after the illegal cervid parts are in the Commonwealth,
after a reporting from a taxidermist or cervid meat
processor. Random border checks would stop a few, but they
would become a serious deterrent to many others. Increased requirements
for the monitoring and reporting of captive cervid
herds and breeding operations in the Commonwealth, not just
to the Department of Agriculture but also to the KDFWR, should
be considered.
Captive Cervid Operators should be required to purchase insurance
against the contamination of our wild cervids. The policy
should list the KDFWR as the “loss payee” should a captive cervid
escape and become a disease vector with which the KDFWR
must contend.
Captive Cervid Operations should be required to have even
more robust physical barriers on the perimeter of their facilities
and during transportation, to prevent the escape of any captive
cervids.
The KDFWR should begin year round sampling of road-kill
deer for CWD. The testing should be focused on the same thoroughfares
that would be points of ingress for deer hunters returning
from CWD positive states, mentioned in item (1) above.
The second flaw is that the plan fails to address the overall
nature of the CWD vector – the prion. The protein prion that
causes CWD is exceptionally hard to destroy and can remain viable
for decades in the natural environment.
So, while cervids are social creatures that may pass the
prion from one animal to another laterally (directly animal to animal)
or maternally (mother to offspring), it could also be passed
indirectly. That indirect transmission would occur by a cervid
urinating, defecating, vomiting, giving birth or leaving any other
body fluid containing prions on the landscape. While the fluid
would dry up, the prion would remain viable on the landscape
for years. It is then possible for another cervid to ingest those
prions and become infected. Thus, any human activity that congregates
deer is potentially a risk to also congregating infected
deer in a CWD environment.
We believe the plan very adequately addresses shutting
down of baiting in the
containment and/or
surveillance zones only
after the disease is discovered.
Thus, baiting
should continue in its
current form until the
disease is discovered
and then this plan
should be followed.
It is imperative to
improve the plan and
include food plots and other agricultural practices that congregate
deer in the response plan. Once CWD is discovered, the
plan appropriately curtails baiting in the containment and/or surveillance
zones. In the absence of bait stations and feeders, food
plots and livestock minerals will aggregate deer in even greater
numbers. Thus, the ground used for food plots and areas around
livestock minerals will become a reservoir of CWD vector prions;
therefore, food plots and agricultural practices in CWD positive
areas must be considered and actions to mitigate the risks associated
should be considered.
If the KDFWR updates the existing plan to incorporate the
above recommendations, then the Kentuckiana Chapter of Safari
Club International will be in total support.