[ad_1]
JACKSON – A recently killed road-killed deer on the side of Gros Ventre Road, near Kelly, is responsible for the first confirmed case of chronic debilitating disease at Jackson Hole.
Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, is a scary and always fatal disease that infects elk, deer and moose. It could potentially depress wildlife populations considerably over time. Before arriving officially in Washington, he was crossing Wyoming in the direction of Jackson Hole. Although feared, his arrival was quite awaited.
"It's not really shocking," said Brad Hovinga, regional supervisor of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "We had found it basically around us, in Lincoln and Sublette counties and east of us."
Managers of Grand Teton National Park were informed of the result of this positive test by the Game and Fish Wildlife Health Laboratory in Laramie late last week, and the results of a confirmation test have been confirmed. been published Monday.
The animal whose positive result was removed from the roadside and tissue samples were taken on November 5th. The male did not show the emaciation that CWD could possibly cause to his victims and looked externally like "any other adult male deer," said Dave Gustine, responsible for the Teton Park Fish and Wildlife Resources.
As Jackson Hole is a crucible for migrating mule deer and is also home to resident animals, there is no say in where does the positive male for the CWD come in, although there is a suspicion that he has migrated from the east, said Gustine.
Cousin of mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, wasting syndrome is spread by prions, misfolded proteins that can survive outside of their animal host and can persist in the soil and herbs. There is no evidence that CWD can be removed from a landscape once it has been introduced.
A 2015 study of Converse County mule deer herd, which has been harboring trypanocytosis for decades, revealed that the disease resulted in a population decline of 19% per year. Nothing says how much the wasting of the disease will quickly affect Jackson Hole ungulates at the population level, or move species to moose.
"MDC is a disease that is evolving very slowly. I guess, according to current literature, it will take years, if not decades, before we can see a population-level effect of CWD on deer in western Wyoming, "Hovinga said. . "And we did not find it in elk, so we consider it to be reserved for deer in western Wyoming."
The nearest elk that tested positive for CWD was in the Bighorn Basin, in a hunting area that extends between the Owl Creek and Cody Mountains. Positive momentum has already been found dead at Star Valley, otherwise all nearby detections have been made with deer. On a larger scale, the MDC is manifest in 25 states and in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada.
The elk feeding program will continue this winter, as it has always done, Hovinga said.
"We will continue to do what we planned," he said. "This is not a trigger for Game and Fish, from the point of view of management."
Conservation biologists, and recently even Montana wildlife officials, have urged the Wyoming authorities to phase out the elk feeding program to reduce the spread of the disease among elk.
Brian Glaspell, National Manager of the Elk Shelter, also said that no changes were made to the feeding program this winter, but that other switches had been reversed. The shelter, he said, will strengthen its biosecurity protocol for personnel handling potentially infected animals and monitoring animals.
"There is no precise way to predict whether it will jump from one species to another or how long it will take," Glaspell said. "But, anecdotally, if you look at the progress of the MDC in the state, it would seem that it lagged between two to five years between deer [contracting it] and elk. "
The monitoring programs in place will ideally detect the species jump once it occurs. Centers for the control and prevention of diseases transmitted by game and fish to hunters do not recommend eating meat from infected animals. Wyoming wildlife managers tested 3,882 animals for CWD last year. Until this year, Teton Park had sampled 31 elk, 18 fallow deer and two moose.
Teton Park, like other agencies, does not make any immediate major changes as a result of the CWD and puts the emphasis on public education.
"Nobody wanted to see him here," said Sue Consolo-Murphy, Park Science and Resources Officer. "And now we will try to solve the problem in the best possible way."
A former National Elk Refuge employee called on agencies to act quickly.
"It's not surprising that," Hey, we now have a chronic debilitating condition at Jackson Hole, "said retired biologist and author Bruce Smith. "And nothing has really been done to try to reduce the impact of the MDC.
"You have to downsize what the habitat can support," he said. "And while this is happening, the power becomes useless. It's a slow elimination. Everything is feasible and, in the long run, it will be beneficial for Wyoming citizens to have a smaller and healthier herd of elk than is on the horizon. "
Lloyd Dorsey, a Jackson resident and Sierra Club employee, made a similar appeal.
"This deer was very close to the border with the National Elk Refuge," Dorsey said. "Unfortunately, we now know that the disease was at the heart of this world-renowned ecosystem, which highlights the fact that our wildlife, including the elk herd in the fattening parks managed by the State and National Elk Refuge risk very high impact of this deadly disease. "
Source link
