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All hunters who wear their tags on the National Elk Refuge must now leave the animal's head or allow biology technicians to extract a lymph node that can be tested for the disease.
The policy change is part of the shelter's immediate response to the discovery of the chronic debilitating disease at Jackson Hole. The animal that formalized the presence of the degenerative neurological disorder in Teton County was not an impetus, but a mule deer, but was found dead from the road a few hundred meters from the northern border of the refuge , near Kelly.
"Unless there's a change we can not predict, it's the new normal," said Brian Glaspell, director of National Elk Refuge. "We will need to test all captured animals and enhance security."
The collection barrels for elk heads are located in the Miller House and in the West and McBride Hunting Parking Areas. There is still three weeks left to hunt for the refuge, which will run until December 14th.
The positive test for the disease, often called MDC, did not trigger mandatory testing of elk killed in Grand Teton National Park, although recommended. More than 90% of the animals slaughtered in the park are tested, said spokeswoman Denise Germann, because of the "vigorous" efforts of the guards to contact the hunters and encourage them to leave samples.
The Wyoming Hunting and Fishing Department also encourages hunters to submit animal tissue samples for CWD screening, but do not require it. Samples may be returned to checkpoints, in the field to gatekeepers or biologists, or to regional offices of the Crown agency.
Results are usually available within three weeks.
Although MDC has never been passed on to a human being, it is not advisable to consume game meat from animals that carry it. Canadian research has shown that there is no absolute barrier between ungulates and primates, and that macaque monkeys have contracted this disease by eating meat from deer-positive deer.
There is no cure for the MDC, which weighs heavily on the body and mind of the victims. It is 100% lethal and can cause a significant drop in the number of deer. Impacts on elk populations are generally less severe, but national and federal wildlife managers will embark on an unpredictable and unprecedented experience of continuing to feed – and focus abnormally – once prion disease has spread from the species to elk.
The shelter, said Glaspell, brings other immediate changes in response to the current game-changing disease in the landscape. There will be more surveillance and killing of animals at the unhealthy pace, he said, and a new biosecurity protocol for handling potentially infected specimens, including the one that has been used. use of new scalpels for each sampled animal, protective boots and washes, as well as equipment for handling potentially infected animals, such as new trailers.
It will take longer to change more fundamental shelter policies to better cope with the disease – such as the 106-year-old diet program, Glaspell said. The shelter is expected to take steps to reduce the duration and intensity of its feeding program in order to align with a 12-year-old inter-agency master plan, but numbers and trends are changing. in the opposite direction.
"Honestly, the timeline does not depend entirely on me, but it certainly changes the urgency," Glaspell said. "The importance of [the new CWD finding] has been a bit understated, but the truth is that it is a trigger for us and that it is a new way of thinking and doing business at the same time. ;to come up.
"Basically, it's a big threat," said the shelter official. "In terms of immediate action on the ground, our response is quite limited. But what we think about in the National Elk Refuge over the next ten or ten years is a new day. "
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