URGENT, IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO WRITE YOUR OFFICIALS ABOUT THE SHOOTING PENS, CWD, AND RISK FACTORS THERE FROM !
There are presently two bills concerning deer hunting preserves making their way through the Indiana Senate and House. The big push is on...
Senate -
iga.in.gov/legislative/2014/bills/senate/404/#House -
iga.in.gov/legislative/2014/bills/house/1154/No matter what your feelings are on this are you should contact your legislators.
Here is an easy and helpful link to do just that.
www.in.gov/apps/sos/legislator/search/14 YEARS AGO
THE YEAR 2000
Stop the madness: CWD threatens Wisconsin's elk, deer and, ultimately, people.
15 July 00
The Isthmus magazine By BRIAN McCOMBIE
Imagine a disease worse than AIDS rippling through Wisconsin's deer herd. One that's always fatal, cannot be tested for in live animals, and has the chance of spreading to anyone who eats the infected venison. Sound like the premise for Michael Crichton's next apocalyptic thriller?
Unfortunately, such a disease already exists in epidemic levels in the wilds of Colorado and Wyoming. It's infected some game farms, too, and Wisconsin game farmers have imported more than 350 elk with the potential for this disease, including elk from farms known to be infected.
"If most people knew what kind of risk this disease poses to free-ranging deer in the state, they'd be very concerned," says Dr. Sarah Hurley, Lands Division administrator for the Department of Natural Resources. The DNR is now testing free-ranging deer around these game farms for the disease: "We're focusing our energies on those areas where we think there's the greatest possibility of transmission."
The malady the DNR's looking for is chronic wasting disease (CWD)--better known, to the extent it is known at all, as mad elk disease. It's a form of the mad cow disease that devastated Britain's cattle industry in the 1980s, scared the bejesus out of the populace, and is believed to have killed at least 70 people to date. An elk or deer with CWD can be listless, may walk in circles, will lose weight and interact progressively less with fellow animals.
The corresponding human affliction is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (pronounced Croytz-feld Yawkob) or CJD. People with CJD experience symptoms similar to Alzheimer's, including memory loss and depression, followed by rapidly progressive dementia and death, usually within one year. While CJD is rare (literally one in a million odds of getting it), over the last few years at least three deer hunters have died of it. There is no proof either way whether they contracted the disease from CWD-infected venison, but new research says it is possible.
All three varieties--mad cow, mad elk and CJD--belong to a family of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. These diseases alter the conformation of proteins in the brain called prions; after-death brain samples usually show a series of microscopic holes in and around brain cells.
No one is exactly sure how mad elk disease spreads. At first, transmittal through blood seemed likely, as from mother to fawn. But CWD has moved between adult animals at game farms, leading scientists to conclude that it can be spread through saliva or simple contact. Also, the rates of transmission are higher in areas where animals have the most opportunities for contact. Wisconsin's concentrated population of 1.7 million deer interact freely with each other, and scientific modeling suggests CWD could tear through our deer herd devastatingly fast. Despite the danger, Wisconsin and other states are relying on only sporadic testing and a system of voluntary compliance. It's a system that some say has more holes in it than a CWD-infected brain.
At present, Wisconsin game farm owners, even those harboring elk and deer brought in from farms with known cases of CWD, do not have to call a veterinarian if a deer or elk suddenly dies or acts strange. They're also not required to inform the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) or the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) if animals escape into the wild.
"The lax attitude is pretty shocking," says John Stauber, a Madison activist and co-author of Mad Cow U.S.A. To protect people and deer, Stauber argues for an immediate importation ban for game farms, plus programs of testing and surveillance. He suggests both DATCP and DNR aren't taking such measures because, as the regulators in charge, they don't want to find the CWD he thinks is likely already in state. "It's in their bureaucratic interest to not [actively] look for CWD in the game farms," says Stauber. "Because if they find it, who's to blame?"
In the wild and especially out west, chronic wasting disease is spreading fast. Northeastern Colorado documented its first case in 1981. By the mid-1990s, samplings of mule deer brains showed 3% to 4% testing positive for CWD. Within a few years, the rate was 8%, and now Larimer County, the center of the endemic area, has a 15% rate of infection among mule deer. It's also being found in deer and elk in Wyoming.
"Fifteen percent of a wild population of animals with this disease is staggering," says Dr. Thomas Pringle, who tracks CWD-type diseases for the Sperling Biomedical Foundation in Eugene, Ore. "It's basically unheard of. This appears to be an unusually virulent strain. with highly efficient horizontal transmission mechanisms."
CWD could eventually spread to Wisconsin on its own, animal to animal. But that would take decades. Game farms, though, provide a mechanism to cut through all that time and distance and drop CWD smack in the middle of the state.
An open-records search by Isthmus reveals that the first shipment of farm elk from areas with CWD in the wild occurred in 1992, with 66 Colorado elk going to a game farm in Plymouth. In April 1998, DATCP was informed that a Bloomer game farm had purchased one elk from a Nebraska farm later found to be CWD-infected. This prompted a Sept. 15, 1998, memo from Steven Miller, head of the DNR's Lands Division, to Secretary George Meyer, with copies to DATCP chief Ben Brancel and Gov. Tommy Thompson. In it, Miller recommends that Wisconsin follow the lead of Montana (which found CWD on two game farms) and place "a moratorium on the importation of all game farm animals.... At present it appears the only way to help assure the disease does not spread into Wisconsin."
But the moratorium was never put in place, so it's possible that even more elk potentially carrying CWD are now in state.
Instead of a moratorium, Wisconsin has opted for testing. It is among 12 states and two Canadian provinces that currently test deer for CWD. Last year, the Wisconsin DNR began testing road- and hunter-killed deer in 1999 within a five-mile radius of game farms that have brought in elk from CWD-infected areas. Test areas include all or part of Fond du Lac, Dodge, Jefferson, Sheboygan and Washington counties. All of the approximately 250 brains examined in 1999 came back negative; this year, 500 to 600 deer will be tested.
Meanwhile, DATCP is asking owners of game farms that have animals from herds known to have cases of CWD infection to voluntarily enter a surveillance program. The agency's top veterinarian, Dr. Clarence Siroky, argues that voluntary compliance makes more sense than a moratorium because, ban or no ban, game farm operators "are going to find a way to bring these animals into the state. We don't have police patrols and impregnable borders to keep anything in or out."
With voluntary compliance, Siroky says, at least there are records of animals entering the state. So if CWD or other diseases are discovered, the animals can be traced back to their original herds and other farms they may have been at. "It's better to know where the animals are coming in from," he insists.
Siroky may be right that an importation ban would result in some game farms smuggling in animals. But currently, game farmers can bring in any deer or elk, even those from known CWD-infected areas, so long as they can produce a health certificate showing the animal's been tested. The problem is that no test exists to find CWD in live animals. Animals can carry CWD for years and still look healthy, so some of the 370 elk shipped into Wisconsin between 1996 and 1999 from CWD areas could have the disease. The odds are even higher for animals purchased from farms later found to have CWD.
Wisconsin has approximately 100 deer or elk farms and they're big business. On the Internet, prices for elk calves start at $1,500, and breeding bulls go for up to $20,000. Some farms sell venison and the velvet that peels from new elk antlers (considered an aphrodisiac in Asia). Others offer "hunts" costing between $1,000 and $5,000 for trophy deer, to more than $10,000 for bull elk with massive antlers.
Given these economics, it's reasonable to question why anyone with a suspicion of CWD in his or her herd would call in state regulators or a vet. A farm with a proven CWD case, confirms Dr. Robert Ehlenfeldt, DATCP's director of Animal Disease Control, would be shut down indefinitely.
And if a problem develops on a Wisconsin game farm, there's no guarantee that's where it will stay. Dr. Hurley says even fenced-in animals have easy nose-to-nose contact with wild and other farmed animals. Besides, as the DNR's chief of special operations Thomas Solin has documented, many game farms are not secure. Gates are sometimes left open. Fences rust and break, rot and topple, get crushed by fallen trees. Even if game farm animals don't escape, such breaches allow wild deer to get in, mingle with the farmed deer and elk, then leave.
Unlike other diseases, there's no test for CWD in living animals because it doesn't create an immune system counter-response, detectable through blood analysis. You can't kill CWD and related diseases by cooking the meat. One test Stauber recounts in Mad Cow U.S.A. found that scrapie, a sheep form of CWD, stayed viable after a full hour at 680 degrees Fahrenheit. Most disinfectants don't kill these diseases, either, and they can exist in the soil for years.
And while diseases like mad cow and mad elk do have some trouble jumping from species to species, it can happen. This May, Byron Caughey of the National Institutes of Health announced that he had converted human brain materials with mad-elk-contaminated brain matter at rates roughly equal to the transfer between mad cow and humans.
Says Dr. Pringle, referring to Caughey's work, "CWD may not transmit that easily, but the rate isn't zero." Pringle notes that the test Caughey used has been a very reliable proxy in the past in determining transmission possibilities for other diseases, including mad cow.
Once they jump the species barrier, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases adapt to fit the new host and are then passed on rather easily within that species. Unfortunately, says Pringle, no one is trying to determine if CWD has jumped into people as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Making matters more difficult is the fact that the disease can incubate for decades before symptoms are seen.
In states with CWD-infected deer, thousands of people have undoubtedly been exposed to CWD-infected venison. A February 1998 Denver Post article tells of one hunter who's venison tested positive for CWD. By the time he was notified, his meat had already been ground up and mixed with meat from hundreds of other deer for venison sausage.
With AIDS, Pringle notes, there was a definite overreaction, with people initially afraid to even shake hands with people infected with the virus. Looking at the CWD situation in Colorado, he says there's been complete underreaction. "It's like, oh, what the hell. Nobody's died yet--so keep eating the venison!'" Pringle worries that if the disease is found in humans, it will be so only after years of spreading through the human community.
Looking over documents obtained by Isthmus through its open-records request, Stauber says DATCP is behaving more like a lobbyist for the game farm industry than an agency bent on protecting Wisconsin's people from CWD. He points to DATCP's Cervidae Advisory Committee as a prime example. In a Nov. 11, 1998, memo from Siroky to DATCP secretary Ben Brancel, Siroky notes that the committee is needed to "obtain information from the public concerning disease regulation" of farmed deer and elk, and "to help formulate action plans for importation requirements, prevention and control" of CWD. But of the 12 people Siroky nominates, one's a DNR warden, one's a DATCP employee, and the other 10 are game farm owners. And two of these owners were among those DATCP knew had purchased elk from farms at high risk of having CWD.
"There's no significant input from anyone else," says Stauber. "Farmers, deer hunters and consumers are all left out. Meanwhile, the government's failing to take all necessary precautions to alert the public to this potential health threat."
www.mad-cow.org/00/jul00_late_news.html#ccc pens, pens, PENS
*** Spraker suggested an interesting explanation for the occurrence of CWD. The deer pens at the Foot Hills Campus were built some 30-40 years ago by a Dr. Bob Davis. At or abut that time, allegedly, some scrapie work was conducted at this site. When deer were introduced to the pens they occupied ground that had previously been occupied by sheep. ...
also, see where even decades back, the USDA had the same thought as they do today with CWD, not their problem...see page 27 below as well, where USDA stated back then, the same thing they stated in the state of Pennsylvania, not their damn business, once they escape, and they said the same thing about CWD in general back then ;
”The occurrence of CWD must be viewed against the contest of the locations in which it occurred. It was an incidental and unwelcome complication of the respective wildlife research programmes. Despite it’s subsequent recognition as a new disease of cervids, therefore justifying direct investigation, no specific research funding was forthcoming. The USDA veiwed it as a wildlife problem and consequently not their province!” ...page 26.
collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080102193705/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m11b/tab01.pdf”The occurrence of CWD must be viewed against the contest of the locations in which it occurred. It was an incidental and unwelcome complication of the respective wildlife research programmes. Despite it’s subsequent recognition as a new disease of cervids, therefore justifying direct investigation, no specific research funding was forthcoming. The USDA veiwed it as a wildlife problem and consequently not their province!” ...page 26.
sound familiar $$$
Sunday, January 06, 2013
USDA TO PGC ONCE CAPTIVES ESCAPE
*** "it‘s no longer its business.”
chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/01/usda-to-pgc-once-captives-escape-its-no.htmlSaturday, June 29, 2013
PENNSYLVANIA CAPTIVE CWD INDEX HERD MATE YELLOW *47 STILL RUNNING LOOSE IN INDIANA, YELLOW NUMBER 2 STILL MISSING, AND OTHERS ON THE RUN STILL IN LOUISIANA
chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/06/pennsylvania-captive-cwd-index-herd.html Monday, June 24, 2013
The Effects of Chronic Wasting Disease on the Pennsylvania Cervid Industry Following its Discovery
chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-effects-of-chronic-wasting-disease.html Tuesday, June 11, 2013
CWD GONE WILD, More cervid escapees from more shooting pens on the loose in Pennsylvania
chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/06/cwd-gone-wild-more-cervid-escapees-from.html Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Chronic Wasting Disease CWD quarantine Louisiana via CWD index herd Pennsylvania Update May 28, 2013
6 doe from Pennsylvania CWD index herd still on the loose in Louisiana, quarantine began on October 18, 2012, still ongoing, Lake Charles premises.
chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/05/chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-quarantine.html Wednesday, September 04, 2013
***cwd - cervid captive livestock escapes, loose and on the run in the wild...
chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/09/cwd-cervid-captive-livestock-escapes.html OLD HISTORY ON CWD AND GAME FARMS IN USA
www.mad-cow.org/june_98_end.html www.mad-cow.org/99feb_cwd_special.html#ggg www.mad-cow.org/99feb_cwd_special.html www.mad-cow.org/00/dec00_cwd.html www.mad-cow.org/00/dec00_cwd.html#bbb www.mad-cow.org/cwd_cattle.html www.mad-cow.org/00/archive_frame.html kind regards,
terry
