I Say C C CWD

Oh see what you have done done. CWD is a neurological disease that is limited to deer, elk, moose and other members of the deer family, known as "cervids." CWD is spread by animal-to-animal contact or by animal contact with soil that contains prions from urine, feces or the decomposition of an infected animal. Deer and other cervids with signs of CWD show changes in natural behavior and can exhibit extreme weight loss, excessive salivation, stumbling and tremors. CWD can spread through natural movements of infected animals, transportation of infected live captive animals, or the transportation of infected carcasses.
As you can see from the photo this disease is a heart breaker just like the focus of the song. This is why most of the 21 states it's found in are very cautious of the outcome if the disease takes hold. When 3 free ranging deer were found in Wisconsin, to have CWD, in 2003 the Mi DNR devised a plan to try and control any outbreak in our state. When a penned or ranch deer was found in Kent County in MI the plan was enforced and baiting was outlawed in the lower peninsula and restricted in the UP. So far, 7,999 deer statewide have tested free of chronic wasting disease, experts said. Testing was ordered after the fatal neurological disorder was found in that pen-raised deer. Experts collected deer heads from hunters to test for the disease. The collection was mandatory for any deer killed in a nine-township surveillance area adjacent to Algoma Township. Throughout the rest of the state, giving up deer heads was voluntary, though officials had a goal of 300 from each county touching Kent.
CWD monitoring has cost the state about $960,000 in 2008. Deer killed in the nine- township Kent County surveillance zone will continue to be tested through the end of the year, when bowhunting ends.
The money for testing comes from several sources, including:
• $1.8 million from taxpayers in a general fund appropriation to the DNR for wildlife disease work.
• $75,000 from the United States Department of Agriculture for CWD work.
• $500,000 from the Michigan Game & Fish Fund, which is supported by hunters and anglers through license fees and federal surcharges on outdoor equipment. Processing and testing deer heads for CWD costs almost $120 per deer, Schmitt said. Expenses include testing by Michigan State University, collecting and transporting the heads, incineration and public outreach.
So now after 5 years with no cases of CWD found we have baiting back. All the Elmer Fudd hunters are happy again. Deer hunting is quite different for different people in different places and lifestyles. Most of the hunters I know bait to try to see more deer. They hunt less than a week a year and the bait gives them a warm fuzzy feeling but not much else. The bait needs to be out for quite a while longer for deer to come to the bait on a regular basis. None of the baiters I know of take the bait out of the woods after thier 3-4 day stint so the bait stays there and allows deer to find it and congregate around it causing body contact and exchange of fluids from sneezing on each other. So the ban on baiting was used in the NE Lower Peninsula to control Bovine TB, another devestating disease that could wipe out the herd. The baiting ban, however, really had little effect on CWD so why was it used? CWD is passed on through prions which are on the ground, deposited trough urine or feces. So prions could be on the bait, but the use of food plots and standing crops, which are more prevelant, also produce the same effect. Maybe it's something that another state has done.
No, sorry, you'll have to come up with your own opinion on why Michigan stopped baiting. Other states have CWD problems but haven't had the same knee jerk reaction we have had. The impetus of this article was a report from Missouri that they had 2 free ranging deer tested positive for CWD. Kathy Etling, a famous outdoor writer, covered the story in the St. Louis paper. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) received two positive test results for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) from 1,077 tissue samples taken from free-ranging deer harvested by hunters in north-central Missouri during the 2011 fall firearms deer season. Both positive test results were from adult bucks harvested by Missouri hunters in Macon County, and are the first CWD-positive results for free-ranging deer in Missouri. Two years ago the state had a scare with a deer ranch. Agents of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) made an indemnification offer to Rob Brasher, who is the owner of Heartland Wildlife Ranches in Ethel, Mo., to cover the costs of destroying the remainder of the whitetail deer and red elk now inhabiting the high-fenced pasture where last fall a single CWD-positive whitetail buck was found. Heartland Wildlife Ranch is located in Linn County in the heart of Missouri's big buck country. The ranch is not double fenced since Missouri law does not require it, so wild whitetails can easily contact animals inside, some of which may now be infected with CWD.
According to Tim Ripperger of the Missouri Department of Conservation, Brasher turned down the USDA's indemnification offer. Sources have stated off the record that officials with the USDA are planning to make further adjustments to the offer in hopes that the next amount will be more acceptable.
The CWD-infected whitetail, an animal which had spent its entire life at Heartland Wildlife Ranches, died last fall. The pasture inhabited by the buck prior to its death is near Buckland, Mo. No red flags, supposedly, were waved at the time of the buck's death but when its tissue was later tested as part of the state's voluntary CWD surveillance program — believe it or not only a small percentage of deer and elk who die or are killed in any Missouri high-fenced area are tested for CWD — it was determined that the buck had CWD. For how long was anybody's guess.
The CWD-infected whitetail had been living in the 800-acre, high-fenced pasture together with about 50 other whitetail deer and about 150 red elk. Since CWD is an infectious disease of cervids — whitetails, mule deer, elk and moose — it is very likely that other animals have already been exposed to the infectious prions. Scientists believe CWD is transmitted through urine and feces and possibly other bodily fluids such as saliva.
The buck died in the fall. Soon afterward the Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA), which has jurisdiction over high-fenced shooting operations like Heartland's, ordered the removal and testing of 50 additional animals from the pasture in which the infected buck had been living and 20 animals from another of Heartland's pastures. All tested negative for CWD.
In mid-March employees of the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), together with a team of sharpshooters and landowners, culled 150 wild whitetails within a 5-mile radius of Heartland. Tissue from those 150 deer, three additional road-killed deer and 72 deer which had been shot during the 2009 hunting season was also tested. All tested negative for CWD. I count 300, 70 ranched deer and 222 free ranging, deer tested.
Now Maryland has discovered a CWD deer on 2/10/2011 after intensive testing for 10 years. We have tested intensively for this disease and see this as an unfortunate but somewhat inevitable outcome. Hurray! One out of 6800 deer tested.
So it seems every state is excited to welcome this disease. Eager to stop it's spread before any other state can. Huh? All the info is very reachable on a search, I'm not making anything up but just touching the surface. Look up CWD in Wiscinsin, Missouri, Maryland and Michigan. Now the discouraging part. What's it cost for all of this testing? Well $1 mil in 2008 in Michigan @ $120/test, $65 in Wisconsin / test and $17 / test in Colorado, the first state to discover CWD. Why so cheap in Coloradao? Well they were the first state and if you donate a deer for the community food bank the deer has to be tested. Go figure.
Who pays for all this testing? You and me partner. The Federal budget has included up to $13.9 mil per year up to 2011. For 2012 the alotted budget is $1.9 mil, look for the caution and the ammount of testing to go way down here on in.

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