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None of Almost 1,000 Deer Tested Had Wasting Disease, DNR Reports

Posted on: Thursday, 22 December 2005, 09:00 CST

By John McCoy, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va., The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Dec. 22--Samples taken from nearly 1,000 hunter-killed Hampshire County deer have failed to turn up further evidence of chronic wasting disease within the county.

Division of Natural Resources officials received the final results from a Minnesota testing laboratory Tuesday afternoon. Paul Johansen, the DNR's assistant wildlife chief, said the rogue proteins that cause the disease weren't present in any of the samples.

"We tested a total of 998 hunter-provided samples, and none of them turned up positive," he said.

Johansen called the findings "encouraging."

"It does appear at this point that the occurrence of CWD is tightly confined to a limited geographic area of Hampshire County," he said. "Now our job is to figure out what we're going to do about it."

The disease, which causes symptoms similar to mad cow disease in antlered animals such as deer and elk, was first discovered in West Virginia Sept. 2 during a routine test of a road-killed deer's brain tissue. The finding, near Slanesville, triggered an immediate DNR effort to determine the disease's geographic spread and its prevalence within the whitetail population.

DNR teams shot and killed more than 200 deer. Three of the first 75 had CWD-causing proteins in their brain tissues. Since then, only one deer -- a 7 1/2-year-old doe that died Nov. 18 after exhibiting the disease's final-stage symptoms -- has tested positive.

If DNR officials were to use only the results from deer sampled so far, the disease's prevalence within the Hampshire County herd would equate to slightly more than four-tenths of 1 percent.

Johansen said the DNR's next step would be to map the area where all the CWD-positive animals were found. After that, he added, biologists would decide how best to contain or eliminate the disease.

"There's a whole range of possibilities," he said. "We can try to limit spread by limiting the amount of deer feeding and baiting that goes on. We can look at prohibiting the removal of deer carcasses from portions of the county.

"Certainly, we'll be looking at possible downward adjustments of the area's deer population. Out-and-out eradication is probably not a feasible option, but if we reduce deer densities within the affected area we stand a better chance at reducing the disease's spread. And finally, we'll need to look at issues related to the captive [deer] industry."

Johansen said it would probably be "a matter of weeks" before DNR officials establish their disease-fighting strategy. In the meantime, he said biologists might shoot some additional deer for sampling.

"At the very least, we're going to continue sampling road-killed animals within the county," he added. "We're in 'CWD management mode' for the long haul. At the very least, we want to contain the disease and minimize its effect on our deer herds. At best, maybe we can get rid of it altogether."

To contact staff writer John McCoy, use e-mail or call 348-1231.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

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Source: The Charleston Gazette

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