MI bans imports of deer and elk from WI

[Tom Morang]

March 07, 2002
Contact: Sara Linsmeier-Wurfel 517-241-4282
Agency: Agriculture (MDA)

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Michigan bans imports of deer, elk from Wisconsin after detection of Chronic Wasting Disease
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Michigan officials today implemented a ban on all imports of cervidae (deer and elk) from Wisconsin after three of its free ranging, white-tailed deer were recently diagnosed with Chronic Wasting Disease.



Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a disease of deer and elk that attacks the animals’ nervous systems, causing chronic weight loss that eventually leads to death. It is not known to be contagious to humans, livestock or other animals. Before the Wisconsin discovery, CWD had only been found in limited areas of the Western United States and Canada.



Dr. Joan Arnoldi, Michigan State Veterinarian and Director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s (MDA) Animal Industry Division, said the ban was instituted to help ensure that Michigan remains free from CWD and to protect Michigan’s privately-owned cervid industry and wild deer and elk. MDA oversees the licensing, registration and inspection of the state’s approximately 900 cervid operations. The ban will remain in effect until more information is gathered about the scope and range of the disease in Wisconsin, she added.



As an added precaution, Arnoldi said the Department will identify and trace all cervids that have been imported from Wisconsin over the past three years, and conduct CWD surveillance on all death losses from those herds.

Currently, Michigan law prohibits the importation of any deer or elk from a county or adjoining county in any state where CWD has been diagnosed. In addition, cervids brought into Michigan must obtain an entry permit before movement can occur and be accompanied by a health certificate attesting that each animal has not been exposed to CWD. This is the first time Michigan has banned importation of deer and elk from an entire state, but due to shared borders, the unknown extent of the disease, and the need to ensure the continued health of Michigan cervids, the state action was warranted.



MDA, in partnership with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) and the state’s deer and elk farmers, has taken several other steps over the past few years to keep CWD out of the state, including:

Conducting thorough epidemiological investigations from any CWD-implicated source.
Conducting surveillance of wild white-tailed deer and elk. More than 450 animals have tested negative for CWD to date.
Promoting CWD awareness among the state’s deer and elk farmers, hunters and public.
Monitoring privately owned deer and elk through voluntary submissions from these operations.


MDNR Resource Management Deputy George Burgoyne Jr. said the emergence of CWD this close to home requires Michigan to plan for and implement additional surveillance of both wild and privately owned deer and elk.

"We take this situation very seriously, and will act immediately to ensure the future health and safety of Michigan wildlife," Burgoyne said.



The Michigan Deer Elk Farmers Association (MDEFA) is also committed to the state’s continued and enhanced CWD surveillance and testing efforts.



MDEFA President Alex Draper stated: "We have worked very closely with MDA, MDNR, Michigan Farm Bureau and other animal interest groups to develop the statewide Privately Owned Cervidae Producers Marketing Act, and just recently, the Commodities Marketing Committee. The monitoring of CWD, bovine tuberculosis (TB) and other animal diseases is an integral part of our industry. As industry leaders, we have always maintained a proactive stance as evidenced by our support and implementation of the statewide TB testing program – testing 93 percent of all privately owned deer and elk with no TB found. We will work very closely with the state on a CWD monitoring program that will maintain the viability and integrity of our industry."

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[Tom Morang]

Minnesota officials prepare to battle chronic wasting illness

(Published Thursday, March 07, 2002 9:15:09 AM CST)

Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Wildlife officials hope to head off the spread of a deadly deer and elk disease into Minnesota after three whitetail bucks were found with the illness in Wisconsin last week.

A relative of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease is not known to be transmittable to humans or livestock. It hasn't been discovered in Minnesota, but Department of Natural Resources officials don't want to take any chances.

"(The disease) became a high priority for us several months ago," said Glenn DelGuidice, a DNR deer researcher based in Grand Rapids. DelGuidice said the DNR has started formulating plans to fight the illness, which attacks the brains of deer and elk.

The DNR is planning to increase its testing of wild deer shot by hunters next fall and is formulating a contingency plan for handling an outbreak of chronic wasting disease if it occurs.

Because there is evidence of disease transmission between game farms and wild deer, the DNR might tighten rules for more than 350 deer and elk game farms the agency regulates. DelGuidice said herd owners might be forced to strengthen their fences, permanently mark their animals and report escapees.

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health, which regulates 236 deer and elk farms, also has started a voluntary testing program for the disease and is prohibiting animals from being imported from regions with chronic wasting disease.

"It's a pretty serious disease," said DNR wildlife research manager Mike DonCarlos. "It has a long incubation period and is fatal to deer. It has the potential to impact our deer herd. It's also not well understood at this point."

The World Health Organization has reported there's no evidence that chronic wasting disease is transmittable to humans.

Chronic wasting disease has been limited mostly to western states, but recent events suggest it has begun to spread eastward. South Dakota officials recently began killing deer in Fall River County to test for the disease, which was discovered last month during random samplings of hunter-killed deer. The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department plans to kill 75 to 140 deer to find out the extent of the disease.

It's unknown how the disease was transmitted to the three deer killed by hunters in Wisconsin's Iowa and Dane counties near Madison. The Wisconsin DNR has been testing for the disease since 1997.

The Colorado Wildlife Commission recently approved a plan to cull 4,500 deer from the Fort Collins area over three years in order to stop the spread of the disease.

[Tom Morang]

Northwest Nebraskans told half of region's deer herd may be killed


CRAWFORD, Neb. (AP) - Half the deer population in northwest Nebraska may have to be killed over the next five years to help contain a fatal disease, wildlife officials said.
Increased hunting would help thin the 3,500 deer believed to be in the area, officials of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission told more than 170 people gathered Wednesday to hear about the problem.

Reaching that goal could include extending the firearm deer season in Sioux and western Dawes counties from 10 days to 4 1/2 months - from Oct. 28 to March 15, wildlife officials said.

The first cases of chronic wasting disease in Nebraska were confirmed in the past two years - three in the southern Panhandle and nine in the northern Panhandle.

The disease also has been seen in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and Wisconsin. It is fatal to deer and elk, but has not been shown to be harmful to livestock or people.

Colorado agriculture officials have killed more than 500 captive elk exposed to the disease, and 900 more were expected to be killed by March 11. Officials said that should rid the state's captive herds of the disease.

Commission director Rex Amack said increased hunting in northwest Nebraska is a radical plan. Wildlife division director Jim Douglas said results of the first year could lead to changes in the length of the season.

Landowners expressed concerns of trespassing during winter feeding and calving periods.

Douglas said the comments will be considered before a final plan is submitted to the commission's board next week.

[Tom Morang]

March 9, 2002, 6:29PM


Move on deer importing may be too late
By SHANNON TOMPKINS
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Texas wildlife officials propose sealing the state's borders to importation of white-tailed deer as part of a program they hope helps prevent the state's private and public deer herds from being exposed to Chronic Wasting Disease, a close relative of the more well-known Mad Cow Disease.

But, officials admit, the move may be too late to prevent CWD-infected deer from entering the state and potentially devastating Texas' $2 billion deer hunting and deer ranching industry.

While no cases of CWD have been documented in Texas, the state has no monitoring program targeting discovery of infected deer, either in penned or wild herds.

And thousands of deer, some from states with CWD in their herds, have been imported into Texas over the past several years.

"Right now, we don't know if we have CWD in Texas," said Jerry Cooke, director of TPWD's upland wildlife programs. "We know we've had no documented cases, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not here. But we certainly hope it's not."

Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, an untreatable, always-fatal disease affecting the brain, has been spreading as deer and elk have been moved around the nation by buyers and breeders.

First identified in penned deer and elk Colorado in the 1960s, CWD was initially noted in the state's wild deer population in the mid-1980s. Since then it has spread to wild populations in Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Saskatchewan and, just announced this past week, Wisconsin.

It also has been identified in penned deer or elk herds in Oklahoma and Kansas.

CWD is a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, the same disease family as bovine spongiform enchephalopathy that causes the "Mad Cow Disease" that resulted in the slaughter of millions of head of livestock in Britain and killed approximately 80 humans who contracted BSE from infected meat.

So far, CWD has proved transmissible only to deer and elk. Most scientists believe the chance of it infecting cattle or humans is low, but note there is no definitive evidence to support that theory.

While CWD's effects are known -- it results in degeneration of brain tissue -- its causes and transmission are poorly understood by scientists.

But it is obvious that CWD-infected deer can and have passed the disease to other deer, particularly when many animals are in close quarters or high concentrations such as those seen in many deer ranches.

It can take years for the disease to manifest itself in an animal, and scientists do not know whether CWD is transmittable during that incubation period.

Until the recent documentation of CWD in two wild whitetail fawns in Nebraska, it seemed CWD affected only adult animals.

Also, no test is available to detect CWD in live animals. The only dependable CWD test involves use of brain tissue, and animals must be dead to take the tissue sample.

"This is an issue that scares every wildlife biologist to death," Doug Humphreys of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's wildlife division said of CWD's spread and its little-understood methods of transmission. "Not only do we not know how deer get it, we don't know how to get rid of it."

The Texas Animal Health Commission this past November ordered a prohibition on importing deer and elk from Colorado.

But TAHC and TPWD officials, who have been working together to address the CWD issue, are looking for a more effective way to prevent any CWD-infected deer from entering the state.

While TAHC is moving toward passing regulatory changes that will give the agency's executive director authority to unilaterally take action that could include prohibiting import of deer and elk from other states, it will take at least a few months for any such change to be approved by the agency's commission.

In the interim, TPWD is moving to "suspend" deer imports until TAHC is in a position to take the regulatory lead.

Under TPWD proposals published in the March 1 issue of the Texas Register and set for consideration April 4 by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, the agency would cease issuing permits allowing deer to be imported into the state.

Any out-of-state deer already in the state at the time of the ban taking effect would not be affected by the prohibition.

If the commission approves the proposal, the import ban could take effect as early as April 25.

Currently, almost anyone owning deer habitat can obtain a TPWD-issued permit allowing them to purchase and import deer from out-of-state. Most of those permits are obtained by some of the 450 or so individuals in Texas holding TPWD-issued "scientific breeder permits."

Most of the private landowners and permitted deer breeders obtain those animals in an effort to produce buck deer with large antlers, a commodity that can bring the deer's owner tens of thousands of dollars should the buck be used for breeding, sold to another breeder or sold to a person wanting to shoot a heavy-antlered deer.

Over the past decade, thousands of deer have been imported into Texas from other states.

The pace of importation has accelerated in past months as Texas wildlife and animal health officials have voiced concerns about the possibility some of those imported deer could be carrying Chronic Wasting Disease.

That concern intensified over the past two weeks as wildlife officials in Wisconsin reported finding CWD in that state's wild deer herd.

Since 1996, Wisconsin's natural resource agency has conducted disease testing on blood and tissue samples from deer taken by hunters.

Of the approximately 400 hunter-killed deer checked this past season, three have tested positive for CWD so far, Wisconsin officials announced this past week. All three animals were taken from a two-county area near Madison.

The findings, the first CWD cases east of the Mississippi River, shocked state wildlife officials. The closest confirmed cases of CWD in deer had been more than 900 miles away, in Nebraska and South Dakota.

But Wisconsin, like Texas, holds hundreds of "game farms" where owners import and release deer and elk bought from other states.

A Wisconsin wildlife official in 1998 had alerted supervisors in that state's Department of Natural Resources, its agriculture agency and the governor's office that unless the state issued a moratorium on importation of all "game farm animals," they risked a CWD outbreak.

That warning went unheeded.

Julia Langenberg. Wisconsin DNR veterinarian and administrator of its deer testing program, told the Denver Post that she is certain CWD's arrival in her state's deer herd was "human assisted," indicating it arrived via imported animals.

About half the states in the United States currently prohibit importation of deer and/or elk -- seven prohibit importation of all "cervids," and 17 outlaw importation of white-tailed deer.

That number is certain to grow as states such as Texas, which has had a liberal deer importation policy, begin considering sealing their borders to deer imports.

"I would not be surprised to see a lot of other states take steps to address deer imports in the wake of what's been happening over the past year," said TPWD's Humphreys. "This (CWD) has a lot of people shaking in their boots."

It also has a lot of Texas deer importers apparently rushing to get out-of-state deer into the state before any prohibition takes effect.

In the 12-month period immediately prior to members of the TPW Commission this past summer first publicly voicing concern over deer imports, TPWD issued permits authorizing 470 white-tailed to be brought into Texas from other states.

During the January-February 2001 reporting period, before talk of an import ban, deer importers hauled 92 out-of-state deer into Texas.

During the just-ended January-February 2002 reporting period, that number jumped to 243 deer, a 150 percent increase.

Those nearly 250 deer came from a dozen states and a Canadian province.

Two loads of them came from Wisconsin.

Shannon Tompkins covers the outdoors for the Chronicle. His column appears Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

[sadocf1]

When Mad Cow Disease- Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy-became established in cattle in the UK, the authorities predictablyassured the public there was no cause for alarm,there was no threat to public health, everything was under control, Tony Blair and the Minister of Agriculture scoffed hamburgers on TV to assure the public that it was perfectly safe to eat beef.When it became evident that the practice of feeding ruminant meat and bone meal back to cattle it was banned and these products of the rendering industry were exported to European countries.The livestock feed industries in these countries were happy to add these cheaper sources of protein and minerals to livestock feeds. In due time a long list of countries were reporting BSE in their cattle.
In the UK it became evident that the human population was becoming infected by eating beef from infected animals.
In the United States, where more animal protein and bone meal are fed to livestock than in any other country, our USDA felt that to ban the practice of feeding ruminant meat and and bone meal back to ruminants would create a " undue hardship'' on the rendering and feed industries, so a largely ignored "voluntary ban'' a sort of political band-aid, was put in place.
The FDA, showing more concern for public health, banned the practice fo feeding ruminant meat and bone meal back to ruminants-cattle, sheep, goats, deer, elk-- however it could be fed to swine and poultry-- swine and poultry rendered by-products could be fed to ruminants- in spite of the fact that the causitive agent of Transmissable Spongiform Encephalopathies--TSE's- is impervious to heat and chemicals.
Sheep Scrapie, a TSE of sheep in the UK, apparently jumped the species barrier causing Mad Cow-BSE-in cattle due to the practice of adding rendered by-products of scrapie infected sheep to cattle feeds. Sheep Scrapie was imported to the United States in 1947. Our Scrapie Eradication Eradication Program began in 1952.When funds were available infected flocks were depopulated-owners paid for their sheep-when funds were not available flocks were quarantined-owners could keep their sheep but couldnt sell them.Sheepmen soon learned not to report animals showing symptoms.
Over the years millions of sheep have been pastured on BLM land in western states. In the past 30 years a TSE in both wild and captive deer and elk has been identified in several western states and Saskatchewan and has crossed the Mississippi to Wisconsin. Captive deer and elk have been fed commercial feeds and mineral mixtures containing meat and bone meal by-products derived from scrapie infected sheep. Scientists from the Center for Disease Control need no longer be "mystified'' as to the cause for CWD!
At the height of the Mad Cow Epidemic in the UK, our Scrapie Eradication Program was limping along with barely enough funding to cover salaries and expenses. There was the alleged federal surplus. By the use of highly questionable tests on lambs from 3 flocks of sheep in Vermont that had been imported from Belgium, our Administrator of the Scrapie Eradication Program, Linda Detwiler, was of the opinion that these sheep might be infected with some form of TSE, and were possibly a threat to the livestock population of the United States, so Secy. of Agriculture Glickman Declared an Emergency authorizing $30,000,000 for the Program. The sheep from these 3 flocks were sent under heavy guard to the lab in Ames,Iowa, where further testing will be done.These test will require 2-3 years to complete, and the results may be "classified'' information.
So far the USDA has largely ignored the TSE in deer and elk-there are no federal TSE regulations on interstate movement of either wild or captive cervidae. Hunter killed deer and elk from western states can be transported to any other state, the heads, bones and scraps can be disposed of without restriction.
Federal and state officials have assured the public that CWD poses no threat to public health or to our livestock.
There is no "cause for alarm''- everything is "under control''
Hopefully our state and federal officials will appear on TV MUNCHING ON VENISON SAUSAGE , to reassure the public.
Our State Veterinarin has issued a ban on deer from Wisconsin-they dont want our cows- we dont want their deer!
If our deer are not already infected, it is only a matter of time.The sad, sad, inevitable result will be to eradicate more deer. Bambi's long and happy life will be cut short, not by the disease, but by the Program to attempt to eradicate it, just like Bossy, the best cow in the barn has met her fate.