The Latest on Chronic Wasting Disease

As I write this there are still thousands of deer heads to be tested from the fall 2002 hunting season for chronic wasting disease. From tests already done we can now add Illinois and Minnesota (though not found in the wild in MN) to the list of states where CWD occurs. In the next few years we will find CWD popping up in some states where it hasn’t been found. . But what does CWD mean for the future of deer hunting?

Once the furor in Wisconsin calms down, hunting will return to normal, with some minor changes. In Wisconsin there were 257,571 licensed bowhunters in 2001 and 227,132 in 2002. There were 688,261 licensed gun hunters in 2001 and 620,059 in 2002. Hunters took 444,384 in 2001 and 367,116 in 2002. But in Colorado, where CWD has been around for almost 30 years, license sales are at a record high. Truth is that most hunters there are not concerned enough about CWD to stop hunting. In fact, last fall Colorado offered a very cheap, one-day test for CWD and a lot of hunters did not take advantage of it. Around 25,000 deer and elk heads were tested by early January and 233 heads tested positive for CWD. Since many deer and elk hunters did not have their heads tested, this means that some of the untested animals that hunters took home, both Colorado hunters and non-resident hunter, had CWD. And if that is true for this season, it was also true for all the past seasons where we had CWD in Colorado. CWD positive animals have been killed by hunters in Colorado for years. And, if they took some positive CWD animals home, then they ate them as well. This has been happening for years and guess what? No one has died from eating CWD positive meat. This has been going on for years, yet no problems as yet.

Several biologists have said that CWD is a media-driven disease. To a large degree, that is true. No doubt it is a serious disease. That is for sure. And we need to manage this disease, as we have others. It is apparent that in most states, we’ve allowed the deer herds to swell way beyond their ecological balance. Twenty-thirty deer per square mile should be the high. But in many midwestern states (egs. Michigan, Wisconsin) and many eastern states (egs. West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York) we have areas where there are 50 deer per square mile and more. It is a basic principle of wildlife diseases ... high density brings disease. Right now, Pennsylvania is attempting to bring herds down by shooting lots of does. That has to happen everywhere and hunters have to get this done.

Baiting will also change in the future. Maybe not eliminated, but with some limitations. The reason? Baiting brings animals together in one location and thus, it may be part of the disease problem.. Not always, but some bait sites, when viewed from the air, look like a bike wheel.....the hub is the bait, and trails come to the bait from all directions. Baiting is a biological and political problem that will be bantered about for years. But watch...it will change.

What you need to do right now is take precautions with your deer after harvest. Do this and you should be fine. Wear rubber gloves to gut the deer, and bone out the meat. Do not use the neck (it has lots of lymph nodes which can house CWD prions). In the long run, we’ll need to lower doe numbers (which will be great for getting some big animals), we’ll have to limit or set new rules on baiting, and we’ll have to take precautions in butchering our animals. We are not going to eliminate CWD. Wisconsin is not going to eliminate CWD. And, there will be other deer diseases coming down the road that we aren’t even aware of as yet. But as with Lyme Disease, and EHD, and other diseases, we will learn to live with CWD. What hunters need to do now, more than ever, is get out and hunt.