DEER DISEASE: Pennsylvania sounds the alarm bell on deer disease

– Pennsylvania's efforts to control the spread of chronic debilitating disease have spread to Berks County, the closest to the Lehigh Valley since the first confirmation of the disease in the state in 2012.

Experts say the white-tailed deer and hunting culture in Pennsylvania are not facing a MDC disaster. Again.

But game and agriculture leaders are calling for a concerted effort by hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts, as well as deer producers, to avoid becoming another Wisconsin. Parts of this state are seeing half of their cervid populations infected, said Wayne Laroche, special assistant to the Pennsylvania Game Commission for chronic debilitating disease.

"They will probably never get rid of this unless they find new ways to disinfect the landscape," Laroche said at a recent MDC meeting hosted by state representative Marcia Hahn. , R-Northampton, to the east. Bath Rod and Gun Club in East Allen Township.

Hunting in Pennsylvania is a $ 1.6 billion industry, Hahn said.

"So we want to ensure that hunters are happy, in any case, that we can maintain the economy," she said Wednesday. "This generates a lot of tax revenue for us and helps the state."

Chronic debilitating disease affects members of the deer family: black-tailed deer, elk, moose, mule deer, deer, reindeer, Sika deer and white-tailed deer, as well as hybrids of these species.

It was confirmed for the first time in the United States in 1967, in northern Colorado. Now, it's in almost half of the country's states. With Pennsylvania, it has since been found in Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota , Texas, Utah. , Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada.

At the regional level, the disease first appeared in eastern West Virginia in 2005, in northern Virginia in 2009, and in western Maryland in 2010, close to the border with Pennsylvania.

It has been confirmed in 177 wild deer in Pennsylvania since 2012, including 78 in 2017 and 26 to June 2018.

"This disease does not respect the limits, okay, it's not an AP problem," said Dr. Kevin Brightbill, veterinarian in charge of fighting the MDC for the Department of Health. Agriculture of Pennsylvania. "It's kind of a problem on the East Coast, Maryland and West Virginia.

"I'm here to say that no matter where it comes from.If we care about the future of hunting, we have to think of strategies that wildlife lovers, deer in captivity, hunters how we can all come together and mitigate that. "

Like mad cow disease in cattle and scrapie in sheep, MDC is part of the family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. It is caused by an abnormal protein, called a prion, rather than by a living organism like a virus that an animal's immune system might fight.

There is no treatment, no treatment and no vaccine.

"And so animals start wandering, ears fall, salivate, fall, and end up dying 18 to 24 months usually after being infected," Laroche said. "It is only in the last stages that you see signs … And any animal that contracts the infection always dies …

"They all die in the end."

IN FASHION NOW:

We do not know that CWD affects humans. According to Laroche, the US Centers for Disease Control and Infectious Disease Prevention have studied cases of increased incidence of Mad Cow-related Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease to detect potential peaks associated with debilitating disease chronic. There has been no evidence of human infections.

It spreads between deer by feces, urine and saliva. The prion can remain infectious on the outside of an animal for 15 years, said Laroche. This could cause the deer to catch the infection from the environment if enough prions accumulate, for example in the watering station of a farm.

On the first day of the 2012 deer season, hunters bring deer caught in the Adams and York Counties disease management area to a chronic debilitating disease testing station in Pennsylvania's playgrounds 249.

With an incubation period of up to two years, an infection with CWD is usually not evident in deer. If an animal looks sick, the shooting club experts told the audience of about 40 people to avoid eating meat. The MDC is only one of the animal diseases that preoccupy, in addition to bird flu, tuberculosis and brucellosis, to name a few.

"However, animal studies suggest that MDC poses a risk to certain types of non-human primates, such as monkeys, that consume meat from animals infected with CWD or come into contact with deer or fluids. infected ". "These studies raise concerns about the possibility of a risk to people".

As a precaution, the CDC recommends that you do not consume deer meat and elk with a positive MDC test. State officials advise wearing protective gloves when dressing up a deer and telling hunters to ask their butcher to only process their killing instead of killing them. mix with the meat of other deer.

The state is asking hunters or other wildlife enthusiasts who see a deer that they suspect of having the MDC to call their regional Pennsylvania Game Commission office. According to Laroche, a hunter who fires a suspect sick deer can get another tag for another deer from a gamekeeper.

To stem the spread of MDC, Pennsylvania has established four disease management zones in south-central Pennsylvania. DMA 1 was disbanded as a result of the control measures put in place at Adams County's captive deer farm, where the disease first appeared in 2012.

DMA 4 is the most easterly, extending to Reading in Berks County. This area was created in 2018 following the discovery of CWD in a captive deer at a farm in neighboring Lancaster County.

More than 5,895 square miles of Pennsylvania are located in metropolitan areas of development.

Rehabilitation of cervids is prohibited in DMAs; the use or possession of attractants based on outdoor cervid urine; elimination of high risk cervid parts such as spinal cord / spine and head; and feeding deer wild and roaming.

For deer killed in a DMA, the Gaming Commission offers free tests on heads falling in CWD collection containers installed around these areas. The only reliable test for MDC is done on the brainstem and lymph nodes of a deer carcass.

Meat, skin and wood attached to a clean skull plate can be removed from a DMA.

"Do not consume high-risk parts," says the commission on the website. "The normal ground dressing, associated with boning a carcass, will eliminate most, if not all, of the high-risk parts.Remove all adipose tissue will eliminate the remaining lymph nodes. "

Pennsylvania tested 7,910 free deer and 128 elk for CWD in 2017, compared to 5,707 deer and 110 elk in 2016. Since 2002, the Gaming Commission has tested more than 69,000 deer for CWD.

According to Laroche, the game commission biologist, the deer has been shown to have a range of resistance to CWD. For this reason, experts do not recommend eradicating a wild flock where there is CWD, in the hope that generations transmit resistance.

"But the truth is that if we do not solve this problem the same way as in Wisconsin, Wyoming, West Virginia, Colorado, the future of deer hunting for your kids and grandchildren will definitely be compromise. "Laroche said last week in Northampton County. "So we have to be serious about it and we have to commit to doing what we need to do and maybe sacrifice a little bit to get the job done."

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.