Pinefarm
04-22-2002, 10:30 AM
Disease may jeopardize deer hunting in Michigan
April 22, 2002
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will try to stop the spread of chronic wasting disease by killing 90 percent of the deer in the area of southwestern Wisconsin where the infection has been found.
Bob Garner, a member of the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, said Sunday he hopes to raise enough money through private organizations "to create a picket line in the four UP counties" that border Wisconsin by testing far more deer than the 500 for which the Michigan DNR has budgeted.
Bill Vander Zouwen, a Wisconsin DNR official, said: "We didn't think it could jump the Mississippi, but it's here."
CWD is a transmissible spongiform encephalitis related to mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseases. It seems to infect only cervids, members of the deer family. There is no evidence it can spread to humans.
First discovered in Colorado, this fatal ailment spread rapidly in deer and elk there, Montana and Nebraska, despite relatively low densities of cervids and efforts by the states to control the disease by killing every deer and elk they can in the infected areas.
Garner said: "If they can't stop it spreading in Colorado, where you have five to seven deer per square mile, what happens when it gets into a place like the UP, where you can have hundreds of deer in a winter yard? How about parts of the Lower Peninsula with 30 to 50 deer per square mile?
"And the big question is how CWD jumped 900 miles to Wisconsin. It could have been through a live animal shipped to a deer or elk farm, but we also know that several Wisconsin hunters dumped emaciated Colorado elk carcasses that they didn't want to mess with," Garner said.
The Michigan United Conservation Clubs board voted unanimously at its weekend meeting in Thompsonville for resolutions demanding that the state stop licensing new cervid facilities; forbid the expansion of existing ones; require that all existing big-game ranches be double-fenced, and ban the importation of all exotic animals, dead or alive.
The only exceptions would be antlers, skins and boned meat from animals killed by hunters, which experts say pose no risk.
"I told the board that (CWD) is without question the most serious threat to hunting in Michigan in my lifetime," MUCC executive director Sam Washington said.
April 22, 2002
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will try to stop the spread of chronic wasting disease by killing 90 percent of the deer in the area of southwestern Wisconsin where the infection has been found.
Bob Garner, a member of the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, said Sunday he hopes to raise enough money through private organizations "to create a picket line in the four UP counties" that border Wisconsin by testing far more deer than the 500 for which the Michigan DNR has budgeted.
Bill Vander Zouwen, a Wisconsin DNR official, said: "We didn't think it could jump the Mississippi, but it's here."
CWD is a transmissible spongiform encephalitis related to mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseases. It seems to infect only cervids, members of the deer family. There is no evidence it can spread to humans.
First discovered in Colorado, this fatal ailment spread rapidly in deer and elk there, Montana and Nebraska, despite relatively low densities of cervids and efforts by the states to control the disease by killing every deer and elk they can in the infected areas.
Garner said: "If they can't stop it spreading in Colorado, where you have five to seven deer per square mile, what happens when it gets into a place like the UP, where you can have hundreds of deer in a winter yard? How about parts of the Lower Peninsula with 30 to 50 deer per square mile?
"And the big question is how CWD jumped 900 miles to Wisconsin. It could have been through a live animal shipped to a deer or elk farm, but we also know that several Wisconsin hunters dumped emaciated Colorado elk carcasses that they didn't want to mess with," Garner said.
The Michigan United Conservation Clubs board voted unanimously at its weekend meeting in Thompsonville for resolutions demanding that the state stop licensing new cervid facilities; forbid the expansion of existing ones; require that all existing big-game ranches be double-fenced, and ban the importation of all exotic animals, dead or alive.
The only exceptions would be antlers, skins and boned meat from animals killed by hunters, which experts say pose no risk.
"I told the board that (CWD) is without question the most serious threat to hunting in Michigan in my lifetime," MUCC executive director Sam Washington said.