Chronic Wasting Disease found in Wisonsin and South Dakota deer

[Tom Morang]

Bad News for everyone.



FOR RELEASE: February 28, 2002

CONTACTS: Julia Langenberg, VMD, DNR Wildlife, (608) 266-3143; James Kazmierczak, DVM, Epidemiologist, Wis. Dept. of Health and Family Services, (608) 267-7321; Robert Ehlenfeldt, DVM, Animal Disease Control, Wis. Dept. of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, (608) 224-4880

Chronic Wasting Disease detected in three Wisconsin deer
MADISON -- Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) was detected in samples taken from three deer registered during Wisconsin's November 2001 Deer Gun Hunting season, state officials announced today. All three samples were taken from deer killed in Deer Management Unit 70A (Iowa and Dane counties) and registered in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. All three were bucks two and one-half to three years old. CWD is not known to be contagious to livestock or humans.

According to Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services Epidemiologist James Kazmierczak, CWD is similar to a disease of humans called Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), but the two diseases are caused by different agents, and should not be confused with each other. Kazmierczak pointed out that the World Health Organization (WHO) has said there is no scientific evidence that CWD can infect humans. Over 16 years of monitoring in the CWD-infected area in Colorado has found no CWD in people or cattle living in that region. For safety’s sake, however, experts suggest that hunters should avoid eating the brain, spinal cord, eyes, tonsils, spleen or lymph nodes of white-tailed deer and elk because the infectious agent tends to concentrate in those tissues. The World Health Organization has recommended no part of deer or elk that show evidence of CWD should be eaten by people.

"We are just at the front end of evaluating the scope of the problem. We need to interview the hunters who let us sample their deer, find out exactly where the deer were taken and whether these deer exhibited unusual behavior," said Julia Langenberg, DNR veterinarian and administrator of the deer testing program.

"Results from the other 400 deer tested in the state will be available soon and will be communicated to hunters -- especially those in the Mount Horeb area -- as soon as possible," Langenberg said. State officials also noted there is no threat to cattle or sheep.

We can assure the public that CWD is NOT the same disease as Scrapie in sheep or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in cattle. Transmission of CWD from deer to cattle under free-roaming conditions is extremely unlikely," according to Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) Assistant State Veterinarian Bob Ehlenfeldt. "Scientists at the National Animal Disease Center injected CWD infected disease materials directly into cow brains and cattle did not develop any signs of the disease."

The hunters who submitted the deer tissue samples are being notified by state conservation wardens today (February 28). How the deer became infected is not known at this time, but a study will be conducted to try to determine a source.

DNR, DATCP and DHFS are working jointly to respond to this disease problem. Once the information from the hunters and other test results are known, the agencies will be taking additional surveillance and control steps.

The agencies are consulting with experienced CWD experts in Colorado and Wyoming where the disease is known to exist, and at USDA, to develop plans to control the disease in Wisconsin.

Informational material is being developed for hunters, deer and elk farmers and the public.

Scientists test for CWD by examining the brain tissue of animals. Since 1996 the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has conducted an aggressive deer herd health evaluation program by requesting tissue and blood samples from deer taken by hunters to test for bovine tuberculosis, Cranial Abscessation Syndrome and CWD. This is the first time CWD has appeared in samples. Sampling has never detected Bovine Tuberculosis in Wisconsin deer.

Currently 44 farm-raised elk herds are enrolled in a voluntary CWD surveillance program with DATCP. These herds have tested over 100 animals that have all been negative for CWD.

CWD has been diagnosed in wild, free-ranging deer and elk primarily in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming, and in adjacent Nebraska. There has been no general caution issued against eating deer or elk in the infected Western areas. CWD has also been found in captive elk in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota and Saskatchewan.

Researchers are just beginning to understand CWD. It is likely caused by an abnormal protein called a prion. The mechanism of spread for CWD is unknown but could involve close contact between animals, or animals exposed to a CWD-infected environment. Usually months to years pass from the time an animal is infected to when it shows signs of the disease. Classic CWD signs in deer and elk 18 months or older include poor body condition, tremors, stumbling, increased salivation, difficulty swallowing, and excessive thirst or urination. There is no live animal test for CWD, but an experimental live-testing method looks promising.

"We are obviously very concerned, but are also encouraged that our state monitoring has revealed the problem so that we can take steps to deal with it," Langenberg said.



PIERRE, SD - A deer harvested by a hunter this past hunting season in
Fall River County has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease
(CWD).

CWD causes damage to portions of the brain of both deer and elk, and
leads to the death of the animal. The disease is contagious. It has
been detected in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming for a
number of years, and more recently in western Nebraska with the
latest detection of CWD 2 months ago in northwestern Nebraska near
the South Dakota border. Until this positive test in Fall River
County, there had been no sign of the CWD in free-roaming herds of
deer or elk in this state through extensive testing from 1997-2001.

"Because of the contagious nature of this disease, we felt there was
a very real possibility it might show up in our state," said Dr. Sam
Holland, State Veterinarian with the Animal Industry Board (AIB).
"The Animal Industry Board and the Department of Game, Fish and Parks
(GF&P) have taken this threat very seriously and have closely
monitored this situation for several months."

The heads of over 500 deer were collected from hunters in South
Dakota this past fall to test for CWD. There were 77 deer collected
in Fall River County alone. The infected deer was one of these 77,
and there are more still to be tested.

"We will continue to aggressively test for the presence of this
disease in our state," John Cooper, Secretary of the Department of
GF&P said. "Our plan is to work closely with the area landowners to
find out what the extent of the disease is. We will be harvesting
between 50-100 additional deer in southern Fall River County to test
for presence of CWD."

Cooper said an action plan for dealing with CWD has been in the works
and, depending on the outcome of the testing, is in the process of
being implemented. Besides collecting more deer heads for testing, it
will probably involve taking additional measures to prevent CWD from
further entering the state and spreading should it occur. Cooper said
this would be done in cooperation with the Animal Industry Board and
area landowners.

"We have watched the situation in neighboring states very closely,"
GF&P Secretary Cooper said. "In particular we have tracked the
monitoring of the deer herd in northwestern Nebraska by the Nebraska
Game and Parks Commission since infections of CWD have been reported
as close as 10 miles to the South Dakota border. We are in the
process of gathering information to determine what action we will
need to take."

Cooper noted the states where CWD has been identified have not had to
halt their deer or elk hunting seasons and have used informed hunters
in a number of deer management units to help reduce the deer
population and, hopefully, incidence of CWD. There is no evidence CWD
can be transmitted to humans, or to animals other than deer and elk.
"At this time we plan to proceed with our basic deer and elk
management plans and seasons but with possible modification in any
management units where CWD is found. We want to be proactive in
working to eliminate CWD from South Dakota. Our goal is to do that
and not disrupt our wildlife management programs."

--
Dr. Sam Holland, State Veterinarian, South Dakota
<Dr.Holland@state.sd.us>

[Tom Morang]

More.........


Chronic wasting disease moving east


Vet calls for testing of wild elk, deer

By Theo Stein
Denver Post Environment Writer

Monday, March 04, 2002 - Every state that has had game farms during the last 10 years should immediately check for chronic wasting disease in wild and captive herds of deer and elk, a Colorado wildlife veterinarian said Friday.

The warning came days after startled Wisconsin officials disclosed that three white-tailed bucks killed in an agricultural region near Madison last fall tested positive for the fatal deer and elk disease.

It's the first time the relative of mad cow disease has been identified east of the Mississippi River. Its arrival in Wisconsin places 20 million white-tailed deer in the eastern United States and Canada at risk.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, eats away at the brains of bovine victims. It reached epidemic levels in British cattle during the mid-1990s.

"The irony is we'd started looking for (chronic wasting disease) a couple of years ago just to be safe," said Julie Langenberg, a wildlife veterinarian with Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources. "And now we've found it. Who knows what else is going on in the Midwest?"

"That's what I worry about," said Colorado Division of Wildlife veterinarian Mike Miller, one of the nation's foremost CWD researchers. "There aren't a lot of states that are actually looking for it."

Officials are unsure how CWD arrived in Wisconsin, which is 900 miles farther east than the disease had been seen before. But U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesmen said the agency will investigate the dozens of deer and elk farms near the game unit where the deer were shot, even though none has reported a case of CWD.

"Somehow it was human-assisted," said Langenberg.

Wisconsin's voluntary CWD surveillance program wasn't started until 1997, and 44 of the state's elk farms have registered with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. Just one of the state's 500 deer farms, which are regulated by the Department of Natural Resources, is participating in the program.

"I think the agency will now come out strongly in favor of mandatory programs," Langenberg said.

National standards proposed by the USDA would require elk herds to be monitored for five years before they could be declared free of CWD.

Not much is known about how CWD moves through herds of white-tailed deer. But a recently discovered outbreak in northwest Nebraska has given researchers pause: 24 of 62 deer killed inside a 1,500-acre Sioux County shooting ranch - 39 percent - tested positive.

The implications of the disease running through the East's incredibly dense white-tail herds - in some cases hundreds of animals per square mile - make officials shudder.

"We're going to have to do some hard thinking about what this means," said Langenberg. "Unfortunately, this is the first time it's happened with whitetails. So we're going to have to learn as we go."

One thing is certain: Three decades after it was first identified as a killer of deer and elk, chronic wasting disease has broken out of its 15,000-square-mile stronghold on the borderlands of Colorado and Wyoming.

Two weeks ago, South Dakota officials acknowledged their first case of CWD in a wild whitetails near a previously infected game farm south of the Black Hills. In Nebraska, biologists shot more than a hundred deer in the last two months near an infected ranch to find the extent of an outbreak. A thousand miles to the north, Canadian biologists found infected deer in a region where 38 elk farms were devastated by an outbreak of the disease between 1997 and 2000.

Even though CWD's relative, mad cow disease, has killed more than 100 Europeans who ate tainted British beef, there is no evidence that the deer disease can infect humans. But a 2001 study by a Montana lab suggests that scrapie, another related disease, can infect new species without causing symptoms for two or more generations.

Researchers say it's too early to conclude that the Nebraska and South Dakota outbreaks were caused by game farms.

But elk breeders say that mismanagement of wild herds is the real problem.

"Wildlife officials have known that the disease existed in the wild, and they have made virtually no efforts to eliminate the disease or even stop its spread," said Lisa Villella, executive director for the North American Elk Breeders Association, echoing a frequent complaint of Colorado elk ranchers.

Last month, the Colorado Division of Wildlife finalized plans to shoot more than 4,500 deer in three game units near Fort Collins to see if reducing deer populations can slow the spread of the disease.

[Tom Morang]

State moves to contain disease of deer, elk
While similar to mad cow disease, so far it hasn't hurt humans


By MEG JONES and JOHN FAUBER
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: March 5, 2002

State officials took steps Tuesday to contain the spread of a fatal brain disorder similar to mad cow disease that has turned up in Wisconsin's deer herd.

Chronic Wasting Disease



Quotable

I cannot give you an ironclad guarantee that someone someday won't get this disease.

- Robert Ehlenfeldt,
assistant state veterinarian

It is a very difficult thing to get rid of.

- Judd Aiken ,
professor of animal health and biomedical sciences at UW-Madison



The Department of Natural Resources said last week that three deer shot last season in southwestern Wisconsin were infected with chronic wasting disease - the first time it has been seen in wild populations east of the Mississippi River.

While there is no evidence so far that the disease - which was found in three bucks shot by hunters and registered in Mount Horeb - can infect humans or unrelated species of animals, state officials took actions Tuesday to address the problem.

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted to give the agriculture department new authority to establish quarantines to protect all animals - including the white-tailed deer herd. The committee also voted to impose the same health disclosure and monitoring requirements on deer shipped into Wisconsin that it imposes on animals sold within the state.

Also, the Department of Natural Resources said Tuesday it will conduct aerial surveys to identify deer concentration areas, collect heads from deer killed by motor vehicles to test for the disease and establish a chronic wasting disease surveillance area where the three infected deer were shot. The DNR also will schedule a public meeting in the Mount Horeb area soon to answer questions from hunters and will set up a Web site with information about chronic wasting disease in the state.

In addition, the DNR and officials in western states, where the disease first emerged, have issued precautions for hunters.

Hunters are advised not to eat the brain, spinal cord, eyes, tonsils, spleen or lymph nodes of white-tailed deer and elk because the infectious part of chronic wasting disease concentrates in those tissues.

Since those parts of the deer are rarely eaten, state officials said there is little concern about eating venison. Nevertheless, the World Health Organization cautions that any deer or elk infected with chronic wasting disease should not be eaten.

"I cannot give you an ironclad guarantee that someone someday won't get this disease," said Robert Ehlenfeldt, assistant state veterinarian. "I can tell you it's been in the U.S. since 1967. It's endemic in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska.

"People have hunted in that area and lived in that area and they have never seen anything even remotely related to" chronic wasting disease, said Ehlenfeldt.

Disease may spread
One concern is that now that the disease is here, it could spread to other parts of the state.

"If it is out there in the wild, the ability for it to increase its range is very real," said Judd Aiken, a professor of animal health and biomedical sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "My best guess is that it will be a wildlife disease that will be in Wisconsin for some time to come.

"It is a very difficult thing to get rid of."

The emergence of the disease in Wisconsin is the first time it has been found in wild deer populations outside northeastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. It also has been seen on game farms in South Dakota.

Authorities got the results Tuesday for the rest of the deer tested, and it appears only the three deer registered in Mount Horeb tested positive, said Ehlenfeldt.

However, since the Mount Horeb station registered 1,486 deer during the gun and bow hunting seasons last fall, DNR biologists say it's likely more deer could be infected. Authorities tested 82 deer for chronic wasting disease at Mount Horeb and 363 other deer at five other stations.

"We have a huge deer herd, and even if that three deer represent a very, very tiny percentage, when you're looking at a million deer, the numbers can get up there," Ehlenfeldt said.

Disease is fatal
Chronic wasting disease - also called mad deer disease - is a form of transmittable spongiform encephalopathy. It causes sponge-like holes to form in the brain and is always fatal.

The disorder results in weight loss over time and behavioral changes.

Although it is still uncertain which infectious agent causes chronic wasting disease, prions are the most likely suspects. Prions are abnormal forms of protein that "infect" the animal by causing normal protein to convert to the abnormal form.

The process takes place in nerve cells, primarily in the brain and spinal column, although other areas with nerve cells also can be infected.

Unlike bacteria and viruses, prions are not affected by heat, so cooking generally will not reduce the threat of infection.

The most widely known prion disorder, mad cow disease, can spread to humans. There are no known cases of chronic wasting disease spreading to humans or other animal species.

Unlike mad cow disease, scientists believed a "species barrier" prevents chronic wasting disease from spreading to other animals, said Aiken, an expert on mad cow and other prion diseases.

However, he added, "That doesn't mean we can exclude humans."

Because the incubation period can last two years or more, there may be more infected animals in the wild that are not yet showing symptoms.

How did it get here?
Another unknown: how the disease got to Wisconsin. Officials speculated that it might have jumped from a game farm here to the wild herd.

"We're certainly looking at game farms and whether there's the possibility of an escape from a game farm," DNR veterinarian Julia Langenberg said Tuesday in a phone interview from Nebraska, where she was attending a national conference on chronic wasting disease.

There's also the possibility someone illegally transported the deer into Wisconsin. However the Wisconsin deer got infected, it was most likely through human intervention, said Langenberg, since the only known cases of chronic wasting disease in wild white-tailed deer are far from Wisconsin.

Wisconsin DNR officials have questioned the three hunters whose bucks tested positive for the disease in the hopes of finding out where the deer came from. The deer were all 21/2 to 3 years old and killed in Deer Management Unit 70A in Iowa and Dane counties.

Game farms, which are regulated in Wisconsin by either the DNR or the Department of Agriculture, must keep census records, and some elk farms voluntarily test animals that die from chronic wasting disease. There are more than 500 white-tailed deer farms in the state.

Jim Logan, the Wyoming state veterinarian, said his state already has banned captive game farms.

"I think you'll see quite a few states reconsidering their captive game regulations," he said.

The disease also has been found in captive elk in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

Dave Hawkey, vice president of field operations for Whitetails Unlimited, said it's possible the news about chronic wasting disease may deter some hunters from heading into the woods.

"But then again, if they have a major concern (they should) have that animal checked out by the proper authorities before they take care of processing the meat," said Hawkey, who has hunted in Door County for 25 years and bagged an 11-point buck last year.

Spread slowed by hunting
Langenberg and other DNR officials are hoping the disease won't affect hunting because hunters help thin the herd. Evidence from infected herds in the West suggests chronic wasting disease spreads more rapidly where animal populations are dense.

Officials in Colorado, where the disease was first noticed in the 1970s, caution hunters to request that their animal be processed without meat from other animals being added.

But most meat processors throw the head away and don't cut through the spinal cord when making roasts, steaks and chops from venison, so it's unlikely an infected animal could contaminate other carcasses, said Bob Beisbier, owner of Kewaskum Frozen Foods and vice president of the Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors.

Steven Walters of the Journal Sentinel staff, reporting from Madison, contributed to this report.

[marty]

That's an interesting quote about being "spreads more rapidly where deer populations are dense". Could TB spread the same way?? Are they going to go kill as many as possible and end up another 452......marty:eek:

[Tom Morang]

WISCONSIN


DNR plans to kill dozens of deer for testing
Discovery of chronic wasting disease made west of Madison


By NICOLE SWEENEY
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: March 7, 2002
The state Department of Natural Resources plans to kill dozens of white-tailed deer in western Dane County in an effort to determine the scope of a deadly disease that was discovered in three bucks in that area.



The shooting of perhaps more than 100 deer will take place within a 10-mile radius of the area where hunters last fall shot three deer with chronic wasting disease, said Tom Hauge, director of wildlife management for the DNR. It was the first time the disease - similar to mad cow disease - was found in deer east of the Mississippi River.

The DNR will kill the deer so it can test the carcasses to see whether the disease has infected additional deer.

"We have to move as rapidly as we can to better define what this disease looks like," Hauge said.

The agency already has tested 82 deer, "but to get the kind of numbers we need quickly, we're going to have to harvest the deer ourselves," said Julie Langenberg, a DNR veterinarian in the Bureau of Wildlife Management.

While the DNR will take the lead on the project, it may become a partner with other agencies to complete the sampling. The deer could be killed in the next few weeks, Hauge said.

More than 100 deer may have to be shot if the DNR is to test a total of 200, although the DNR hasn't settled on how many deer are required for the tests, Langenberg said.

The DNR used helicopter flights earlier this week to gather census data from the area. Because deer travel within a 10-mile range, the DNR will gather samples where the three bucks were found and move out in concentric circles.

"If we keep finding positive deer, obviously, we're going to keep going," Langenberg said.

The disease, which attacks the brains of infected deer and elk, has been found in wild deer and elk in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming, and in captive herds in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota and Saskatchewan.

There is no evidence that the disease can infect humans.

Hunters are relieved that the DNR is acting so swiftly, said Peter Gerl, executive director of Whitetails Unlimited.

"We want to look out for the 1.2 million (deer) in the state, and sacrificing a few for testing would be a very wise solution to a serious problem," Gerl said.

Landowners in the area will be notified before the collection begins, Langenberg said. A town meeting on the issue has been scheduled for March 20 in Mount Horeb.

"We're very sensitive to many people's concerns that we move quickly on this, but we're also very sensitive to the need to get the information out to landowners in the area," she said.

While wildlife experts could start shooting deer in the next few weeks, it could take two months or longer to get the test results.

"It's not like you and I going in and having a throat culture done," Hauge said. "It involves a significant amount of lab work."

The DNR tested 1,000 deer for chronic wasting disease and other diseases from 1999 to 2001. The department doesn't know how many deer it will need to test in the future, but it doesn't anticipate having to shoot more for monitoring purposes, Langenberg said.

"I would think there would be a significant number of hunters who will want to bring in their deer to have them tested," Langenberg said. "We want to work with the hunting community to address that desire."

In a related development, officials in Nebraska say that half the deer population in northwestern parts of the state may have to be killed over the next five years to help contain the disease.

To accomplish that, officials are considering extending the firearm deer season in two counties from 10 days to 41/2 months.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Fierkej]

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/whealth/issues/cwd/