- Hello, Jeff - Yep...only 9 cases of Chronic Wasting Disease,
so, "don't worry, be happy!" Nah, nothin' to worry about, so
why monitor for more cases? Heck, if we do that, we might just find them.
So, why worry...and if you live in the South Dakota area, enjoy your deer
meat. Bon Appetite! The old head-in-the-sand, Ostrich symdrome is the way
to go with Chronic Wasting Disease.
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- By the way, hope you know that I am only being sarcastic.
When one hears comments as posted below, it just gets plain frustrating.
This would be a time to widen the monitoring and really try to get a handle
on it BEFORE cases get numerous and out of control thus resulting in eradication
of acres of deer and elk. NINE cases are TOO many when it comes to Chronic
Wasting Disease. Each one of the nine cases will lead to other deer, elk,
and moose becoming infected. The environment becomes infected and the
disease spreads. One would think that wildlife infectious disease EXPERTS
would recognize this.
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- Patricia
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- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging
Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/emergingdiseases/index.shtml
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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- ProMED-mail, a program of the International Society for
Infectious Diseases www.isid.org
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- Deer Disease No Alarm For State Agency
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- By Peter Harriman The Argus Leader March 13, 2003
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- 9 positive cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in
deer samples collected since last July are not enough for the South Dakota
Department of Game, Fish and Parks (GFP) to formally increase efforts to
monitor and control the disease.
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- But it did result in an informal step-up. The department
killed and tested an additional 70 deer in Pennington and Fall River counties
to zero in on CWD hot spots. The results of those tests are not yet available.
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- The 9 positive tests came from a total of 1950 deer and
elk samples. The GFP action plan calls for monitoring the spread of CWD
by testing brain tissues of animals voluntarily submitted by hunters as
long as the infection rate is 1 percent or lower.
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- When the infection rate rises to 1 to 3 percent, the
voluntary submissions will be enhanced by GFP organized sampling, such
as has been done in Pennington and Fall River counties.
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- When the infection rate exceeds 3 percent, testing of
all elk and deer harvested by hunters will become mandatory, and GFP will
attempt to kill all the deer and elk in a designated infection zone in
efforts to eradicate the disease.
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- Based on the results of samples tested since July 2002,
"the prevalence rate we found still falls in that relatively low category
that would dictate continued surveillance on a voluntary basis. That's
the extent of it," says Doug Hansen, GFP Wildlife director. "Continued
vigilance would be the message of the day."
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- CWD was first observed in 1967 in captive deer herds
in Colorado and Wyoming. It was found in wild deer in Colorado in 1981.
Since then, the disease has been detected in wild deer in Nebraska, Wyoming,
Wisconsin, New Mexico, Saskatchewan, and South Dakota.
-
- CWD first appeared in captive elk in South Dakota in
1997. It was first found in free-ranging deer in this state in 2001, when
a whitetail doe near Orel tested positive. The disease appeared in a wild
elk herd last year, when a sick animal in a Wind Cave National Park herd
was killed and tested.
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- CWD also has been found in captive deer and elk herds
in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana,
Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
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- Wind Cave National Park is the site of a 3-year study
to determine the movement patterns of deer herds in and around the park.
After the CWD elk was discovered, the focus of that study was expanded
to determine the incidence of CWD in park deer, according to Wind Cave
spokesman Tom Farrell.
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- The study, which began this year, calls for 40 deer to
be captured, fitted with radio collars, and tonsil tissue collected and
tested. A protein associated with the disease is found in tonsils. 29 deer
were captured in February 2003. One tested positive for CWD and was euthanized.
An additional road-killed deer at the park also tested positive.
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- "We hope to test and radio collar the study's remaining
12 animals within the next few weeks," says Dan Roddy, National Parks
Service resource management specialist.
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- Even in the most severely affected wild herds, the incidence
of CWD has not exceeded 10 percent, but in captive herds held in confined
spaces it can be widespread.
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- The disease is in a class of brain diseases called transmissible
spongiform encephalopathies. In affected animals, malformed proteins on
brain cells called prions appear to warp normally shaped proteins merely
by touching them. Brains in CWD animals eventually disintegrate and become
pockmarked by holes, like a sponge.
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- There is no known cure, and no incidence of animals recovering
spontaneously. Researchers at Washington State University, though, have
discovered a gene that provides 99 percent immunity against the sheep form
of CWD. Researchers are now looking for similar inherited immunity in
deer and elk.
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- The bovine form of CWD, mad cow disease, has been shown
to cross species. About a decade ago, people in Britain who ate beef from
infected cattle developed the human variant of the disease, Creutzfeldt-Jacob
Disease. No link has yet been established between eating deer and elk meat
and human infection, however.
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- In South Dakota, the 9 positive tests suggest CWD is
confined to a few counties. 3 mule deer and a whitetail deer in Fall River
County tested positive. 2 whitetails in Custer County were positive, as
were 2 whitetails in rural Pennington County and one road-killed buck within
the city limits of Rapid City.
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- "A word of caution is to make sure you keep things
in perspective," Hansen says. "When we first started investigating
this disease, we found one or 2 positive tests alarming. Now we're up to
a total of 9 in the recent sample. But you look at those 9, and it is still
less than one percent."
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- Hunting is still the most effective tool for manipulating
the size of deer herds, and GFP doesn't want to see its effectiveness diminished
by concerns about CWD, according to Hansen.
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- "Hopefully, we can keep hunters interested in hunting,"
he says. "From a management perspective, that is what we have to be
concerned about."
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- http://www.argusleader.com/news/Thursdayarticle5.shtml
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- ProMED-mail promed@promedmail.org
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