Tom Morang
03-17-2002, 08:07 PM
Wisconsin State Journal
Officials rue inaction on deer disease
10:24 PM 3/16/02
Ron Seely Science reporter
State officials say they wish they had taken stronger measures four years ago when it became apparent that chronic wasting disease could infect Wisconsin deer herds.
Now, with the fatal disease confirmed in three deer in western Dane County, some are calling for an immediate ban on imported elk and deer, which are used mostly as breeding stock on Wisconsin game farms, to slow the spread of the disease. Already, the state Department of Natural Resources estimates as many as 700 deer concentrated around Mount Horeb, or 3 percent to 4 percent of the herd, are infected.
DNR officials were advised in a 1998 staff memorandum that stern measures were warranted even then. Steven Miller, an administrator with the department's land division, learned during a conference that Montana was considering a moratorium on the importation of all game farm animals until an adequate live test for chronic wasting disease was developed (such a test still doesn't exist). That moratorium was put in place in 2000, Montana wildlife officials said, and the disease has yet to show up in wild animals there.
"Based upon what I have learned of this disease," Miller wrote in 1998 to then-DNR Secretary George Meyer, "I agree with Montana and would recommend the same for Wisconsin. At present it appears this would be the only way to help assure the disease does not spread into Wisconsin." Nothing came of the recommendation, and some are wondering why. "You could see this coming," said John Stauber, a Madison writer and author of a book on mad cow disease who turned up the DNR memorandum in an open records search. "Now, we're trying to head off a disaster. ... Everybody is in 'cover-our-butts' mode."
Meyer, interviewed Friday by the Wisconsin State Journal, said he wishes his efforts then to encourage such a transportation ban had been more successful.
A day of reckoning
State wildlife specialists had long feared that chronic wasting disease would one day show up in Wisconsin's wild deer. Still, when that day came, it was a shock. Sarah Shapiro-Hurley, a DNR administrator and wildlife veterinarian, recalled when the reports on deer tested near Mount Horeb came into the office two weeks ago. "We were like, 'Oh my God, what's happening here?' "
Since then, DNR wildlife specialists have put in many hours of overtime trying to determine how far the disease may have spread. The DNR is recruiting landowners to help kill a sample of 500 deer for testing. At the same time, others, including some state legislators, are wondering whether the DNR and the state Department of Agriculture are doing enough now or should have done more in the past to prevent the arrival and spread of the disease.
Adding fuel to this debate is Miller's 1998 memo. At the time it was written, the state already had been notified that elk from an infected Colorado herd had been shipped into Wisconsin. The memo recommended closing the state's borders to the movement of captive game animals, a possible source of the disease. From all indications, the questions and the concern are more than warranted. DNR officials aren't hesitating today to use the word "crisis" to describe the situation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture apparently thinks it is; the agency declared chronic wasting disease a national emergency in September.
In other states, the little-understood disease has spurred drastic measures. In Colorado, as many as 1,500 farm elk from seven ranches are being slaughtered, their carcasses piled up, doused with napalm and burned. At other ranches, elk were spray-painted with neon-orange paint so they can be identified if they escape to the wild. Even here in Wisconsin, actions of the DNR indicate they are expecting the worst; wildlife officials have looked into buying a chemical digester that would be used to destroy deer carcasses.
It's all eerily reminiscent of the outbreak of mad cow disease - a version of chronic wasting disease that affects cattle - in Europe 15 years ago when thousands of animals were destroyed to stem the spread of the illness. Even worse, a version of mad cow disease spread to humans and more than 100 Europeans have been diagnosed after eating tainted beef. It's the only time researchers know of when such a disease, part of a family of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, leaped from animals to humans. There is no record of chronic wasting disease spreading to humans, although state health officials are urging caution when it comes to eating venison. So little is known about the disease that researchers can't say that it won't leap from deer to domestic livestock.
Feeding also a concern
State Rep. DuWayne Johnsrud, R-Eastman, argues that the dangerous and mysterious disease merits a strong response - such as a ban on the transportation of captive elk and deer - from agencies such as the state Department of Agriculture.
Johnsrud also has blasted the DNR for continuing to allow the feeding of deer - a practice that causes deer to congregate and increases the likelihood of the disease spreading from deer to deer. In the last two weeks, Johnsrud introduced legislation that would give the agency the authority to ban feeding. Tom Hauge, director of wildlife management for the DNR, said Friday that the agency probably will recommend such a ban once it has the authority.
More problematic, however, is regulating the movement of captive animals to and from the state's estimated 500 game farms, something the Department of Agriculture seems reluctant to do, Johnsrud said. The agency, which is responsible for regulating game farms, already has the authority to take such a step, he said. "Ag is not stepping up to the plate," Johnsrud said. "It just escapes me why we would allow traffic from states with chronic wasting disease." But agriculture officials said the agency has acted responsibly. Clarence Siroky, the state veterinarian, said the department has had a phone-in permitting system in place for game farms for several years. Under the program, game farm owners have to call the agency to report animals arriving and provide information on where the animals are coming from and where they are going, he said. A separate program requires game farm operators to have a veterinarian certify animals that are transported within Wisconsin.
In addition, a tracking program started initially to check on tuberculosis in the early 1990s also has helped keep tabs on potential chronic wasting disease cases, Siroky said. Through that system, 20 animals that came from farms with infected herds have been tested. None had the disease. Siroky said the agency has been reluctant to put a moratorium on the transportation of animals because the permitting system allows officials to test animals and keep track of their movement.
Game farmers opposed ban
In the interview Friday, Meyer, who was replaced as secretary last year, called Miller's memorandum a "seminal" document with regard to chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin. Meyer said that after receiving the memo he asked the Department of Agriculture, which regulates game farms, to consider moving forward with more ambitious regulations. That never happened, although the department organized an advisory committee - made up almost entirely of game farm operators - to meet and discuss chronic wasting disease prevention measures. The committee, according to minutes of the meetings obtained by Stauber, did little more than discuss voluntary measures. Other wildlife officials agreed that more probably should have been done. Shapiro-Hurley, who worked with Miller on the chronic wasting disease issue in 1998, said she fears that revisiting what happened then may make it more difficult to work cooperatively to combat the disease now that it is here. Nonetheless, she wishes stronger measures had been taken. "In retrospect," Shapiro-Hurley said Friday, "I think it's possible we could have done more ... but it doesn't do any good to point fingers."
Game farm operators, on the other hand, were adamant in their opposition to a moratorium. In response to Miller's memo, Mike Monson, then the president of the Wisconsin Commercial Deer & Elk Farmer's Association, wrote a letter to Siroky on Sept. 23, 1998, in which he blasted the idea. "The mention of a moratorium or possibility is not only premature, but shows, in my opinion, that some people in the DNR are out to get us," Monson wrote. The association argues today that the most likely source of chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin is the wild deer herd and not game farm animals, and that a moratorium on the movement of captive animals would have done little good. In a news release issued last week, the association said voluntary efforts to control chronic wasting disease in domestic herds of elk and deer have been largely successful. The release pointed out that the state is sixth in the nation in the number of samples submitted by game farms for disease testing. And, so far, no game farm animals in Wisconsin have tested positive for the disease, the release said. Henry Kriegel, a spokesman for the association, added that the group, in light of the discovery of chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin, is discussing potential control measures, including regulations on transportation of animals. "The association in Wisconsin is evaluating that now," Kriegel said.
Johnsrud, meanwhile, continues to call for a moratorium and agrees with Meyer that such a step should have been taken four years ago. It's true, he said, that wildlife researchers can't say for sure where the disease now showing up in Wisconsin deer came from, whether from captive game or from feed piles laced with bone meal supplements, or even from an animal killed in another state and disposed of here. But it makes sense, Johnsrud said, to take extraordinary steps until we know more. Too much, he said, is at stake.
Officials rue inaction on deer disease
10:24 PM 3/16/02
Ron Seely Science reporter
State officials say they wish they had taken stronger measures four years ago when it became apparent that chronic wasting disease could infect Wisconsin deer herds.
Now, with the fatal disease confirmed in three deer in western Dane County, some are calling for an immediate ban on imported elk and deer, which are used mostly as breeding stock on Wisconsin game farms, to slow the spread of the disease. Already, the state Department of Natural Resources estimates as many as 700 deer concentrated around Mount Horeb, or 3 percent to 4 percent of the herd, are infected.
DNR officials were advised in a 1998 staff memorandum that stern measures were warranted even then. Steven Miller, an administrator with the department's land division, learned during a conference that Montana was considering a moratorium on the importation of all game farm animals until an adequate live test for chronic wasting disease was developed (such a test still doesn't exist). That moratorium was put in place in 2000, Montana wildlife officials said, and the disease has yet to show up in wild animals there.
"Based upon what I have learned of this disease," Miller wrote in 1998 to then-DNR Secretary George Meyer, "I agree with Montana and would recommend the same for Wisconsin. At present it appears this would be the only way to help assure the disease does not spread into Wisconsin." Nothing came of the recommendation, and some are wondering why. "You could see this coming," said John Stauber, a Madison writer and author of a book on mad cow disease who turned up the DNR memorandum in an open records search. "Now, we're trying to head off a disaster. ... Everybody is in 'cover-our-butts' mode."
Meyer, interviewed Friday by the Wisconsin State Journal, said he wishes his efforts then to encourage such a transportation ban had been more successful.
A day of reckoning
State wildlife specialists had long feared that chronic wasting disease would one day show up in Wisconsin's wild deer. Still, when that day came, it was a shock. Sarah Shapiro-Hurley, a DNR administrator and wildlife veterinarian, recalled when the reports on deer tested near Mount Horeb came into the office two weeks ago. "We were like, 'Oh my God, what's happening here?' "
Since then, DNR wildlife specialists have put in many hours of overtime trying to determine how far the disease may have spread. The DNR is recruiting landowners to help kill a sample of 500 deer for testing. At the same time, others, including some state legislators, are wondering whether the DNR and the state Department of Agriculture are doing enough now or should have done more in the past to prevent the arrival and spread of the disease.
Adding fuel to this debate is Miller's 1998 memo. At the time it was written, the state already had been notified that elk from an infected Colorado herd had been shipped into Wisconsin. The memo recommended closing the state's borders to the movement of captive game animals, a possible source of the disease. From all indications, the questions and the concern are more than warranted. DNR officials aren't hesitating today to use the word "crisis" to describe the situation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture apparently thinks it is; the agency declared chronic wasting disease a national emergency in September.
In other states, the little-understood disease has spurred drastic measures. In Colorado, as many as 1,500 farm elk from seven ranches are being slaughtered, their carcasses piled up, doused with napalm and burned. At other ranches, elk were spray-painted with neon-orange paint so they can be identified if they escape to the wild. Even here in Wisconsin, actions of the DNR indicate they are expecting the worst; wildlife officials have looked into buying a chemical digester that would be used to destroy deer carcasses.
It's all eerily reminiscent of the outbreak of mad cow disease - a version of chronic wasting disease that affects cattle - in Europe 15 years ago when thousands of animals were destroyed to stem the spread of the illness. Even worse, a version of mad cow disease spread to humans and more than 100 Europeans have been diagnosed after eating tainted beef. It's the only time researchers know of when such a disease, part of a family of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, leaped from animals to humans. There is no record of chronic wasting disease spreading to humans, although state health officials are urging caution when it comes to eating venison. So little is known about the disease that researchers can't say that it won't leap from deer to domestic livestock.
Feeding also a concern
State Rep. DuWayne Johnsrud, R-Eastman, argues that the dangerous and mysterious disease merits a strong response - such as a ban on the transportation of captive elk and deer - from agencies such as the state Department of Agriculture.
Johnsrud also has blasted the DNR for continuing to allow the feeding of deer - a practice that causes deer to congregate and increases the likelihood of the disease spreading from deer to deer. In the last two weeks, Johnsrud introduced legislation that would give the agency the authority to ban feeding. Tom Hauge, director of wildlife management for the DNR, said Friday that the agency probably will recommend such a ban once it has the authority.
More problematic, however, is regulating the movement of captive animals to and from the state's estimated 500 game farms, something the Department of Agriculture seems reluctant to do, Johnsrud said. The agency, which is responsible for regulating game farms, already has the authority to take such a step, he said. "Ag is not stepping up to the plate," Johnsrud said. "It just escapes me why we would allow traffic from states with chronic wasting disease." But agriculture officials said the agency has acted responsibly. Clarence Siroky, the state veterinarian, said the department has had a phone-in permitting system in place for game farms for several years. Under the program, game farm owners have to call the agency to report animals arriving and provide information on where the animals are coming from and where they are going, he said. A separate program requires game farm operators to have a veterinarian certify animals that are transported within Wisconsin.
In addition, a tracking program started initially to check on tuberculosis in the early 1990s also has helped keep tabs on potential chronic wasting disease cases, Siroky said. Through that system, 20 animals that came from farms with infected herds have been tested. None had the disease. Siroky said the agency has been reluctant to put a moratorium on the transportation of animals because the permitting system allows officials to test animals and keep track of their movement.
Game farmers opposed ban
In the interview Friday, Meyer, who was replaced as secretary last year, called Miller's memorandum a "seminal" document with regard to chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin. Meyer said that after receiving the memo he asked the Department of Agriculture, which regulates game farms, to consider moving forward with more ambitious regulations. That never happened, although the department organized an advisory committee - made up almost entirely of game farm operators - to meet and discuss chronic wasting disease prevention measures. The committee, according to minutes of the meetings obtained by Stauber, did little more than discuss voluntary measures. Other wildlife officials agreed that more probably should have been done. Shapiro-Hurley, who worked with Miller on the chronic wasting disease issue in 1998, said she fears that revisiting what happened then may make it more difficult to work cooperatively to combat the disease now that it is here. Nonetheless, she wishes stronger measures had been taken. "In retrospect," Shapiro-Hurley said Friday, "I think it's possible we could have done more ... but it doesn't do any good to point fingers."
Game farm operators, on the other hand, were adamant in their opposition to a moratorium. In response to Miller's memo, Mike Monson, then the president of the Wisconsin Commercial Deer & Elk Farmer's Association, wrote a letter to Siroky on Sept. 23, 1998, in which he blasted the idea. "The mention of a moratorium or possibility is not only premature, but shows, in my opinion, that some people in the DNR are out to get us," Monson wrote. The association argues today that the most likely source of chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin is the wild deer herd and not game farm animals, and that a moratorium on the movement of captive animals would have done little good. In a news release issued last week, the association said voluntary efforts to control chronic wasting disease in domestic herds of elk and deer have been largely successful. The release pointed out that the state is sixth in the nation in the number of samples submitted by game farms for disease testing. And, so far, no game farm animals in Wisconsin have tested positive for the disease, the release said. Henry Kriegel, a spokesman for the association, added that the group, in light of the discovery of chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin, is discussing potential control measures, including regulations on transportation of animals. "The association in Wisconsin is evaluating that now," Kriegel said.
Johnsrud, meanwhile, continues to call for a moratorium and agrees with Meyer that such a step should have been taken four years ago. It's true, he said, that wildlife researchers can't say for sure where the disease now showing up in Wisconsin deer came from, whether from captive game or from feed piles laced with bone meal supplements, or even from an animal killed in another state and disposed of here. But it makes sense, Johnsrud said, to take extraordinary steps until we know more. Too much, he said, is at stake.