BOB@BBT
04-01-2005, 01:13 PM
CWD was just found in NY in a captive deer herd. I think it's time to ban all captive herds here.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050401/NEWS01/504010370/1002/NEWS
Deer wasting disease found
New York case is the first confirmed in the East
Corydon Ireland
Staff writer
(April 1, 2005) State agriculture and environment officials on Thursday confirmed the first New York state case of Chronic Wasting Disease, a brain and nervous system disorder that affects members of the deer family, including white-tailed deer, elk, mule deer and moose.
The disease, prevalent in Western states, has previously been found only as far east as Illinois. The disease does not affect humans, domestic livestock or other mammals. The New York case, in Oneida County, is the first on the Eastern Seaboard.
"It was expected," said Ward Stone, chief wildlife pathologist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation. "I always said ( the emergence of the disease in New York) could be tomorrow, or 10 years from now."
The wasting disease belongs to a group known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. In bovines, the condition is called mad cow disease.
Characterized by chronic weight loss, the disease is always fatal, though an animal can be infected for months or years before dying. Transmission whether by saliva, blood or feces is still largely a mystery.
The deer disease was first identified clinically more than 40 years ago, Stone said.
His laboratory in Delmar, Albany County, will be the site of a few hundred deer autopsies in the coming weeks. Most testing for the deer disease is done at Cornell University and at a federal lab in Ames, Iowa, where the New York case was confirmed this week.
The disease is not a threat to humans, even those who eat venison, said Stone. "It has virtually no significance to human health."
The first New York state case was found in a 6-year-old doe in a herd of captive white-tailed deer. The animal appeared healthy before being killed for the test, and exhibited none of the classic deer disease symptoms, including tremors or stumbling.
The so-called "index herd" in Oneida County whose location was not identified by officials will be slaughtered and tested.
Other herds associated with the affected herd will be killed or quarantined.
There are four "deer farms" in Monroe County, where captive animals are raised and bred for meat. Another type of licensed deer farm more popular downstate keeps the animals in wild-like conditions on large estates, so they can be hunted by club members.
Statewide, there are 433 establishments licensed to keep 9,600 deer and elk in captivity.
"We are confident the state will treat this like the isolated case that it is," said Bill Yox, who breeds deer in Brockport.
Nationwide, federal and state authorities license such operations, where animals are monitored for disease. "That very system has proven its worth" with the discovery of the infected deer in Oneida County, said Yox. "We are monitoring these animals."
The state Department of Agriculture and Markets, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, checks captive herds of deer and elk for livestock diseases and tracks their movement in the marketplace.
That kind of paperwork will make tracing the origin of the infected deer very easy, said Bob King, an agriculture specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County.
State monitoring of wild and captive deer for wasting disease is so good, he added, that the USDA is considering "adopting it as a model for the nation." King has served on federal panels studying the disease.
Since the start of deer disease testing in 2000 in New York, 681 captive deer and elk have been tested. None of the previous tests was positive.
Michael Czora, who keeps a herd of 30 captive deer south of Rochester, speculated that since New York monitoring is so strict, the infected deer might have come from out of state.
And beyond deer farm fence lines, he said, "the DEC monitors the wild herd a lot," including wasting disease tests on roadkill.
From 2002 through 2004, said spokesman Mike Frazier, the DEC has tested 43 wild deer in Monroe County and 535 in the 11-county DEC region that encompasses Rochester.
Statewide, 3,457 white-tailed deer have been tested for the deer disease, including 40 in Oneida County. All the tests came up negative.
1 million deer at risk
Potentially at risk from the wasting disease are 1 million wild deer in New York though it's not a disease that devastates large-scale wild herds, said Stone.
"Nobody knows how big it will be," he said of the deer disease statewide. "We're hoping we caught it early enough.
If the disease gets into wild herds, "the first thing I would do is try to learn more about it," said Frank Amering, 51, a Brighton electrical contractor who hunts deer with shotgun and bow.
But deer disease spreading to the wild is a worry, said Amering, who remembers seeing wild and captive deer "going nose to nose" at a fence.
Transmission, said King, is likely not as casual as that.
The deer disease so far has been found in isolated wild populations of deer and deer-like animals in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
CIRELAND@DemocratandChronicle.com
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050401/NEWS01/504010370/1002/NEWS
Deer wasting disease found
New York case is the first confirmed in the East
Corydon Ireland
Staff writer
(April 1, 2005) State agriculture and environment officials on Thursday confirmed the first New York state case of Chronic Wasting Disease, a brain and nervous system disorder that affects members of the deer family, including white-tailed deer, elk, mule deer and moose.
The disease, prevalent in Western states, has previously been found only as far east as Illinois. The disease does not affect humans, domestic livestock or other mammals. The New York case, in Oneida County, is the first on the Eastern Seaboard.
"It was expected," said Ward Stone, chief wildlife pathologist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation. "I always said ( the emergence of the disease in New York) could be tomorrow, or 10 years from now."
The wasting disease belongs to a group known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. In bovines, the condition is called mad cow disease.
Characterized by chronic weight loss, the disease is always fatal, though an animal can be infected for months or years before dying. Transmission whether by saliva, blood or feces is still largely a mystery.
The deer disease was first identified clinically more than 40 years ago, Stone said.
His laboratory in Delmar, Albany County, will be the site of a few hundred deer autopsies in the coming weeks. Most testing for the deer disease is done at Cornell University and at a federal lab in Ames, Iowa, where the New York case was confirmed this week.
The disease is not a threat to humans, even those who eat venison, said Stone. "It has virtually no significance to human health."
The first New York state case was found in a 6-year-old doe in a herd of captive white-tailed deer. The animal appeared healthy before being killed for the test, and exhibited none of the classic deer disease symptoms, including tremors or stumbling.
The so-called "index herd" in Oneida County whose location was not identified by officials will be slaughtered and tested.
Other herds associated with the affected herd will be killed or quarantined.
There are four "deer farms" in Monroe County, where captive animals are raised and bred for meat. Another type of licensed deer farm more popular downstate keeps the animals in wild-like conditions on large estates, so they can be hunted by club members.
Statewide, there are 433 establishments licensed to keep 9,600 deer and elk in captivity.
"We are confident the state will treat this like the isolated case that it is," said Bill Yox, who breeds deer in Brockport.
Nationwide, federal and state authorities license such operations, where animals are monitored for disease. "That very system has proven its worth" with the discovery of the infected deer in Oneida County, said Yox. "We are monitoring these animals."
The state Department of Agriculture and Markets, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, checks captive herds of deer and elk for livestock diseases and tracks their movement in the marketplace.
That kind of paperwork will make tracing the origin of the infected deer very easy, said Bob King, an agriculture specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County.
State monitoring of wild and captive deer for wasting disease is so good, he added, that the USDA is considering "adopting it as a model for the nation." King has served on federal panels studying the disease.
Since the start of deer disease testing in 2000 in New York, 681 captive deer and elk have been tested. None of the previous tests was positive.
Michael Czora, who keeps a herd of 30 captive deer south of Rochester, speculated that since New York monitoring is so strict, the infected deer might have come from out of state.
And beyond deer farm fence lines, he said, "the DEC monitors the wild herd a lot," including wasting disease tests on roadkill.
From 2002 through 2004, said spokesman Mike Frazier, the DEC has tested 43 wild deer in Monroe County and 535 in the 11-county DEC region that encompasses Rochester.
Statewide, 3,457 white-tailed deer have been tested for the deer disease, including 40 in Oneida County. All the tests came up negative.
1 million deer at risk
Potentially at risk from the wasting disease are 1 million wild deer in New York though it's not a disease that devastates large-scale wild herds, said Stone.
"Nobody knows how big it will be," he said of the deer disease statewide. "We're hoping we caught it early enough.
If the disease gets into wild herds, "the first thing I would do is try to learn more about it," said Frank Amering, 51, a Brighton electrical contractor who hunts deer with shotgun and bow.
But deer disease spreading to the wild is a worry, said Amering, who remembers seeing wild and captive deer "going nose to nose" at a fence.
Transmission, said King, is likely not as casual as that.
The deer disease so far has been found in isolated wild populations of deer and deer-like animals in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
CIRELAND@DemocratandChronicle.com