BOB@BBT
10-22-2005, 09:05 AM
http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoors/outcol20e_20051020.htm
October 20, 2005
A chronic wasting disease committee is working on ways to keep the deadly deer ailment out of Michigan by making rules for captive cervid operations that raise deer species like whitetails and elk.
The group is trying to forge a compromise that will satisfy cervid operations, hunters, the state Department of Natural Resources and farmers. The only problem with that approach is that you can't compromise with a disease.
Unfortunately, this committee won't even consider the best solution -- that no more licenses be issued for captive cervid facilities, and existing ones be bought out or grandfathered in and phased out by attrition. We've already seen bovine tuberculosis and eastern equine encephalitis in our deer herd. Neither presents much of a threat to humans, but bovine TB has added millions of dollars to the operating costs of Michigan dairy and beef farmers.
Everyone involved in deer management is worried about chronic wasting disease. It's in the same family as mad cow disease, but seems to affect only members of the deer family.
However, there's no guarantee it won't develop the ability to infect people. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, apparently existed only in a form that affected monkeys until about 40-50 years ago, when it apparently mutated and began infecting people who ate monkey flesh. And no one thought mad cow disease could infect humans until it began killing people in Great Britain.
Chronic wasting disease, first detected in Colorado in 1967, is fatal in whitetail deer. It recently turned up in Wisconsin, New York and West Virginia, hundreds of miles from the next-closest infected deer, and now it's in wild and captive deer in nine states and two Canadian provinces.
When you try to figure out how chronic wasting disease suddenly crossed hundreds of disease-free miles from Nebraska to Wisconsin, New York and West Virginia, the most likely answer is that it arrived in live deer shipped between cervid farms.
About 750 captive cervid operations are in Michigan, some licensed as hobby breeders, some as animal exhibitors, some as farms (selling meat and other products), and 118 as shooting preserves.
The committee is discussing issues such as the height of fencing needed to keep various deer species inside farms. It's true that fences can keep deer in, but only if they're maintained properly.
When the DNR audited deer farms last year, it found dozens of cases where fences broke down, where hundreds of deer had escaped and weren't recovered and where escapes weren't reported.
Cervid farmers are supposed to report and record deer sales and transfers, but there were numerous cases where they couldn't produce a proper paper trail.
One problem is that deer run wild on large hunting preserves, and the interest of the owners is twofold -- develop genetics to grow massive antlers on bucks, and ensure that people who pay to shoot those bucks behind a fence see lots of them.
My gut feeling is that it's not a question of whether chronic wasting disease will get to Michigan, but when. And then real deer hunters will have plenty on their plates without worrying about preserving the rights of some pseudo-hunters to buy a shot at an animal behind a fence.
Contact ERIC SHARP at 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.
October 20, 2005
A chronic wasting disease committee is working on ways to keep the deadly deer ailment out of Michigan by making rules for captive cervid operations that raise deer species like whitetails and elk.
The group is trying to forge a compromise that will satisfy cervid operations, hunters, the state Department of Natural Resources and farmers. The only problem with that approach is that you can't compromise with a disease.
Unfortunately, this committee won't even consider the best solution -- that no more licenses be issued for captive cervid facilities, and existing ones be bought out or grandfathered in and phased out by attrition. We've already seen bovine tuberculosis and eastern equine encephalitis in our deer herd. Neither presents much of a threat to humans, but bovine TB has added millions of dollars to the operating costs of Michigan dairy and beef farmers.
Everyone involved in deer management is worried about chronic wasting disease. It's in the same family as mad cow disease, but seems to affect only members of the deer family.
However, there's no guarantee it won't develop the ability to infect people. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, apparently existed only in a form that affected monkeys until about 40-50 years ago, when it apparently mutated and began infecting people who ate monkey flesh. And no one thought mad cow disease could infect humans until it began killing people in Great Britain.
Chronic wasting disease, first detected in Colorado in 1967, is fatal in whitetail deer. It recently turned up in Wisconsin, New York and West Virginia, hundreds of miles from the next-closest infected deer, and now it's in wild and captive deer in nine states and two Canadian provinces.
When you try to figure out how chronic wasting disease suddenly crossed hundreds of disease-free miles from Nebraska to Wisconsin, New York and West Virginia, the most likely answer is that it arrived in live deer shipped between cervid farms.
About 750 captive cervid operations are in Michigan, some licensed as hobby breeders, some as animal exhibitors, some as farms (selling meat and other products), and 118 as shooting preserves.
The committee is discussing issues such as the height of fencing needed to keep various deer species inside farms. It's true that fences can keep deer in, but only if they're maintained properly.
When the DNR audited deer farms last year, it found dozens of cases where fences broke down, where hundreds of deer had escaped and weren't recovered and where escapes weren't reported.
Cervid farmers are supposed to report and record deer sales and transfers, but there were numerous cases where they couldn't produce a proper paper trail.
One problem is that deer run wild on large hunting preserves, and the interest of the owners is twofold -- develop genetics to grow massive antlers on bucks, and ensure that people who pay to shoot those bucks behind a fence see lots of them.
My gut feeling is that it's not a question of whether chronic wasting disease will get to Michigan, but when. And then real deer hunters will have plenty on their plates without worrying about preserving the rights of some pseudo-hunters to buy a shot at an animal behind a fence.
Contact ERIC SHARP at 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.