By Christine Petersen CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CASPER, Wyo. – Chronic wasting disease, an always-fatal ailment that eats away at the brains of infected deer, elk and moose, isn’t likely going away on its own.
First
identified in the wild in southeast Wyoming in the ’80s, it’s been
slowly spreading east and west like tentacles crawling across a map. Press
releases appear regularly showing new animals found with the disease in
western Wyoming and Montana. It’s already been identified in 84
percent of Wyoming’s mule deer herds, 26 states and four Canadian
provinces.
Most hunters
and wildlife advocates know all of that. What no one knows for sure is what to
do about it.
A working
group in Wyoming made up about 30 people from around the state
including outfitters, hunters, conservation groups, ranchers, lawmakers and
biologists recently helped produce a 150-page report hoping to offer at least
some direction and guidance. It’s now out to the public for comment.
Some of the
options for dealing with a disease that still mystifies even most wildlife
veterinarians will be controversial for portions of Wyoming’s hunting
community. The report calls for potentially thinning select mule deer herds or
populations in specific areas to prevent the disease from spreading. It
suggests lowering buck numbers because males carry the disease at a higher
rate. The group is also calling for municipalities to create artificial feeding
bans to prevent mule deer from unnaturally congregating.
Most of the
recommendations in the plan had full consensus of the various group members,
said Kristen Gunther, a conservation advocate for the Wyoming Outdoor
Council and co-chair of the working group. Something, she added, needs to be
done.
“The
decision to do nothing is a decision. It has a major cost. If we do nothing, we
will continue to watch this disease spread and watch herds increase in CWD
prevalence,” she said. “It’s important to look at the choice to do nothing as a
choice and one that will have severe management implications on our herds.”
Chronic
wasting disease is a prion—a mutated protein that eventually causes holes to
form in the host brain. No cure exists and it can’t be killed like a bacteria
or virus. It’s the deer and elk version of mad cow disease in cattle and
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
It’s never
been shown to cross the species barrier to humans, but the Centers for Disease
Control and World Health Organization recommend people throw away any meat from
infected animals. Researchers may still not know conclusively if it can or
can’t cross to humans, but they do know the disease is having, and likely will
have, population-level impacts on mule deer herds.
Some Wyoming herds
have CWD rates in bucks as high as 40 percent. Bucks in a herd around Riverton
may have prevalence over 50 percent, though more samples may be needed to
produce statistically conclusive results, said Justin Binfet,
the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Casper wildlife coordinator who
worked extensively on the draft plan.
“Not only
are we documenting the disease in new areas and out of the state but there are
areas outside of the core area where we’re seeing high prevalence,” he said. “It’s
not good news for the future of our deer herds, especially mule deer.”
Wyoming’s
current management plan calls for continued monitoring of the disease and
staying up to date with research, but little else in terms of active
management.
Some of the
biggest changes in the draft plan released Dec. 2 are a potential thinning of
herds and possible reduction in some artificial feeding.
For reasons
scientists don’t yet understand, CWD rates are highest in buck deer. Research
has shown the more bucks the higher a likelihood for spread, Binfet said.
The same
goes for lowering some herd densities. CWD spreads from contact with an
infected animal. Reduced densities, the research shows, potentially reduces
transmission.
“With all of
this the question in people’s minds is, ‘Is the cure worse than the disease?’”
Binfet said. “It is fair to say there are some places
in Wyoming where we have a lot of CWD and have really, really high
buck ratios, and you can potentially reduce buck ratios without impacting the
overall herd.”
The report
also calls for a possible end to artificial feeding everywhere except the
controversial elk feedgrounds in western Wyoming. Because the
feedgrounds have a long history in Wyoming and their own complicated
set of issues, Game and Fish plans to tackle figuring out their future in a separate
series of meetings.
Whatever
happens, Binfet said, decisions to possibly thin herds or reduce buck numbers
will be done in areas with sufficient prevalence data on an individual,
case-by-case basis alongside local residents and wildlife managers.
While Dax
McCarty, outfitter for Wagonhound Land and Livestock near Douglas, acknowledges
many of the proposed changes are needed, he also sees that it could be a hard
sell for some of the public.
Gunther and
Joshua Coursey, the other co-chair of the working group and CEO of the Muley
Fanatic Foundation, agree. That’s why it’s important for the public—hunters,
wildlife viewers, advocacy groups, ranchers and others—to be part of the
process. Communication, they said, is paramount.
“We need
public buy-in and support to manage for the disease and apply best management
practices, but you also have to communicate with the public,” Gunther said.
And some of
the proposed changes will need to be tried for upward of a decade, not just a
season or two, Binfet said. Along with the management changes will also be
possible research projects studying the impact of the tweaks to hunting seasons
and other possible contributing factors.
Binfet is
launching a long-term study with the University of Wyoming to look at
the impact of predators such as mountain lions on the spread of the disease as
well as how transmission occurs between mother and fawn.
The working
group will reconvene in February to discuss any potential changes to the plan,
which will then be submitted to the Game and Fish Commission in the spring.
“We’re at a
point where people are interested and want something done,” Gunther said. “And
that is reflected in the consensus and recommendations from the group.”
