MDC spreads in deer and elk farms as Wisconsin control efforts flounder | Outside

After Governor Scott Walker announced "aggressive new actions" against the MDC, lawmakers rejected an emergency rule aimed at preventing hunters from moving deer carcasses from counties affected by deadly brain disorder.

At the same time, increased fencing requirements are under consideration for captive white-tailed deer and other cervids, including elk, but these proposals face stiff opposition from facility owners who claim that such a requirement does not guarantee the cessation of the spread of the MDC and could put them aside.

Bryan Richards, a national expert on MDC, said Wisconsin's current strategy of allowing facilities housing CWD-infected animals to continue to function poses a serious threat to the wild-life deer population of Wisconsin. State, which has seen more than 4,400 infected deer since the first MDC case in 2002.

Wisconsin now has more CWD deer farms than any other US state, "said Richards, who works for the US Geological Survey at Madison's National Wildlife Health Center.

According to the DATCP registry, nine CWD-positive deer detention centers are still in operation – seven of them have witnessed new cases of CWD on their properties.

"The existence of CWD in these facilities poses a clear, persistent and possibly increasing risk to the integrity of wild deer on the other side of the fence," Richards said.

But a senior DATCP official said the goal of this approach is to keep the CWD contained and removed from the wild deer population. Until 2013, herds at Wisconsin facilities infected with the CWD virus were contaminated and the sites disinfected.

The new approach "aims to mitigate the risk of moving the disease … to the outside of the fence," said Amy Horn-Delzer, veterinary program manager.

Horn-Delzer added that it was incumbent on facility owners to manage the spread of the disease in their own properties.

"We do not want to endanger other livestock farms," ​​she said. "We do not want to put the population of wild deer in danger. So that's the risk we're looking at. "

The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that it's not clear if this still life-threatening disease can be passed on to humans, although research has shown that the consumption of meat from deer with CWD can infect macaque monkeys. The signs of the disease, which affects deer and elk, include weight loss, stumbling, drooling and aggression.

There are 380 recorded commercial farms of deer and elk in Wisconsin, spread in almost every county in the state. Some of them have been in operation since the 1970s and are generally divided into two categories: livestock farms and hunting ranches.

Farms raise deer for sale at the slaughterhouse and ranches that sell hunting experiences in fenced properties. They also sell deer to other livestock farms seeking to introduce new genetic lines into their herds. The industry has long been criticized by some hunters who believe that keeping and chasing animals behind a fence gives hunters an unfair advantage over their prey.

According to state records, 300 CWD tests were conducted at 24 deer farms and hunting ranches in Wisconsin. Most of these have been discovered since 2013 – the same year that the DATCP, which shares the regulation of deer farms with the State Department of Natural Resources, began to allow hunting ranches and cattle ranches to grow. exploit despite the presence of the disease in their premises.

Prior to 2013, all animals tested for CWD in commercial deer were positive. State legislation allows authorities to test animals and, if necessary, kill the flock to prevent the spread of the disease. Owners can receive up to US $ 3,000 in state and federal funding for each euthanized animal.

DATCP Acting Veterinarian, Darlene Konkle, said the agency had decided to take an individualized approach rather than a general policy of depopulating entire herds after detection.

"Since 2013, we have been looking at each of these positive facilities (CWD) on a case-by-case basis and we are only examining the risk," Konkle said.

Konkle said his agency was watching them closely.

"In one of these cases, in a positive DPC facility, they are immediately quarantined as soon as confirmation of the disease is confirmed," she said. "They are not allowed to move live animals. So, there is this control method that is put in place immediately. "

But there are exceptions to the rule.

Wilderness Game Farm Inc. operates two ranching and hunting ranches in Portage County, as well as hunting ranches in Marathon and Shawano counties. Since 2013, there have been 84 cases of CWD in the hunting ranch of Marathon County called Wilderness North.

Despite more positive cases than any other captive deer operation in Wisconsin, the ranch continues to sell hunts at between $ 4,000 and $ 9,000 each, with an option for a "gold hunt" – priced – which promises deer with 200-inch woods, including all points.

Emails from Greg Flees, owner of Wilderness Game Farm, and Paul McGraw, then DATCP Acting Veterinarian, and Horn-Delzer, Program Manager, show mandatory quarantines issued after 2013 Detection, allowing Flees to move deer from his breeding farms, without detecting CWD, in his hunting ranches. . One of them, Comet Creek, in Shawano County, has undergone six positive tests for deer cervidosis screening since 2017.

In April, McGraw and Horn-Delzer also approved Flees' request to move deer with markers of genetic resistance to MDC to the heavily infected Wilderness North property to verify if they were developing the disease. It is part of a research project in collaboration with a researcher from Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona.

The quarantine policy shift of the DATCP was celebrated by Whitetails of Wisconsin, the state's deer breeding lobby. On January 21, 2014, Shannon Thiex, then president of WOW, alerted members that their lobbying had been successful.

"Last week, we had the feeling that we had to fight to get herds in this state to be reduced from about 40 to about 40 animals," Thiex wrote. "After a great teamwork in midlife, we learned today that DATCP would be working this week to change these quarantines into one animal."

Flees is a second generation deer farmer. He added that his family has been breeding great varieties since the 1970s. Since then, Flees has become one of the best-known names in the deer industry, both in Wisconsin than in the whole country. Flees said that when the test results were positive at his Marathon County Hunting Ranch, he did not believe it.

"OK, we closed this property and we moved a group of these fallow deer. We have never taken deer elsewhere than at this farm, which has never had a positive impact, "said Flees. "We installed them on this property, and once they were in that landscape, we started to have positive results for a while."

Flees said that it is possible that the MDC is already on the property or that it has been introduced by scavengers, birds or animal feed products such as corn or corn. alfalfa. A study conducted in 2015 shows that the misfolded protein responsible for MDC, known as the prion, can be absorbed from the soil by plants and infect deer.

Another potential transmission method is deer escaping from positive CWD facilities. The DATCP records indicate that 67 deer escaped from Fairchild Whitetails in Eau Claire County between 2009 and 2015, before the 228-head herd was killed. Among the escapees were two dollars drawn by hunters whose diagnostic test was positive, said the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram.

Owner Rick Vojtik, who is also president of Whitetails of Wisconsin, received $ 298,770 from the DATCP for slaughtered animals. he told the Leader-Telegram that the herd was worth about a million dollars. In all, 34 animals were tested positive for MDC.

According to USGS figures, nearly one-quarter of deer farms that have tested positive for CWD in the country are in Wisconsin. Richards said the state had set a precedent five years ago by allowing the Flees Wilderness Game Reserve to continue to function after the deer began to fall ill.

"So it was a very interesting change of philosophy and very different from what had been done before in the rest of the country," he said.

In May, Walker announced a series of actions to slow the spread of MDC. It requested the DATCP to establish a rule of urgency requiring a reinforced fence and prohibiting the movement of live deer from 55 state counties identified as having CWD, which means that an infected deer had been detected on site or within 10 miles of the county.

The Republican governor also called on the DNR to create emergency rules that would prohibit hunters from transporting deer carcasses out of counties listed as having CWD in unaffected counties.

Walker published his guidelines just before speaking to the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, the official advisory group of citizens on natural resources. At the time, he had stated that the goal was to protect white-tailed deer hunting.

"We need to protect hunting traditions and the long-standing legacy of Wisconsin by working together to contain the spread of chronic debilitating disease in deer," Walker said.

Despite this, the DATCP Citizens Council, made up of Walker appointees, voted to take no action on the governor's request for emergency rules. At present, the agency continues the regular and longer process of regulation by requiring double or reinforced fencing for elk and other non-denuded farms, and prohibiting farms from transporting live animals out of MDC-affected counties. .

The Natural Resources Council, which also includes Walker appointees, has adopted an emergency rule to require improved fencing, including a second 8-foot fence or electric fence for white-tailed deer farms.

In October, the Legislators-Controlled Joint Administrative Rules Review Committee, which reviewed agencies' regulations, voted in favor of maintaining the fence requirements for deer farms, but removed the rule of thumb. DNR emergency that would have limited the movement of deer carcasses from MDC-affected counties. season.

Although he survived the committee, the agency's Citizens Council had already amended the DNR fencing rule to ensure that industry until September 2019 complied with the new regulations.

This delay is important because the rule of urgency must expire on February 27, 2019. When DNR staff were asked if this meant that deer breeders could simply wait for the rule to expire to avoid requirements. reinforced fences, said Scott Loomans, adviser to the DNR's policy initiatives, in an email release that the agency is working on a permanent rule to avoid this.

"We are working on an associated permanent version of the CWD rule, and the goal is to put it into effect before or very near the expiration of the emergency rule," wrote Loomans. "Yes, the longer period in which people must comply, under the amendment, makes the schedule of the permanent rule more important."

The state DNR has estimated the total cost at approximately $ 2.1 million for all deer farms currently. Whitetails of Wisconsin, whose members strongly oppose this requirement, estimated the cost to be more than 10 times higher.

Scott Goetzka of Warrens, owner of the Woods and Meadow Hunting Game Reserve, said the cost of compliance was too high for him and other state deer farmers.

"Because I think it's a political decision – and not scientific or veterinary – in two years, if they do not like it or if CWD continues to spread, they'll come up with something "Anything else you have to do," Goetzka said. "They basically legislate you to go bankrupt."

Even if farms are required to install additional fences, this might not stop the spread, Richards said. He noted that CWD had been detected in Wisconsin in a double-fencing facility.

"So, it's pretty clear that even a double fence does not constitute a complete barrier to the movement of an infectious agent with CWD," said Richards. "So, if this infectious agent can pass from the outside into a captive institution on the other side of the fence, I see no reason to think that it could not either act in the Other meaning. "

While the state is discussing how to slow the spread of CWD, some Wisconsin local governments are taking action.

This year, Bayfield and Douglas counties have adopted moratoria that block new captive captive deer operations for a year, while local officials study the industry and consider new rules.

Al Horvath of Superior, a long-time hunter and delegate at the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, said the moratorium had been written after the discovery of a deer farm in Bayfield County with animals coming from A farm that had been tested positive for the disease.

Horvath said that it was frustrating to note the lack of cooperation between the DNR and the DATCP – which shares facility regulations for deer – in combating chronic wasting.

"It's a state problem," said Horvath. "They are state entities. However, they each operate independently and act as though they were only responsible for part of it. They are responsible to the citizens of the state for all this. And if they can not get together, if they can not work together, they will not work effectively and do the jobs they need. "

Horvath, who sees himself as business friendly, said he understands that many families have dedicated their entire lives to saving money.

"I think that the profit potential of a person – his potential for individual profit – is not enough to jeopardize a whole animal tradition and population," said Horvath. "I just think it's wrong."

Madison hunter Paul Boehnlein registered two deer for CWD testing on November 17, the first day of the rifle season, at the Fitchburg, Wisconsin, self-serve station. The young male and his doe were kidnapped in Iowa County, which was set to zero for CWD in the state. He is in favor of double fence for deer farms, adding, "I do not really understand why people are growing deer in the first place."

No matter how it happened in his hunting ranches – or in the state in this case -, Flees said he and other deer breeders in Wisconsin were turning to genetics for fight against chronic wasting.

For the past year, Flees has reported working with a researcher to breed deer using MDC-resistant markers. Lose the hopes in five years, he could have a resistant flock.

"Let us breeders do our work, and if we succeed in this resistance, let's see how the state can possibly do the same thing in their flock."

Other research suggests that it could be a long time before such responses are available.

"We do not know how prion proteins from MDC could change over time to affect both the infection and mortality of different genotypes and deer populations," according to an article co-authored in June by Michael Samuel. , emeritus professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "There are still many unknowns that make clear predictions about the long-term evolution of MDC resistance."

Meanwhile, the spread of CWD across Wisconsin continues. On November 15, another deer hunting ranch was tested positive for the disease in Portage County, bringing to 24 the total number of establishments tested positive since 2002.

"I think the problem with CWD is that it has been found both in nature and on farms," ​​said Konkle, acting veterinarian. "We do not know what happened first, and at this point, I'm not sure it necessarily matters, trying to manage is a challenge for our two agencies that deal with deer farming. and wild deer. "