Smith: State agencies
must stamp out CWD at deer farms
Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal SentinelPublished
5:17 p.m. CT Oct. 25, 2017 | Updated 8:25 p.m. CT Oct. 25, 2017
WAUPACA - Chronic wasting
disease has arrived in Wisconsin's deer factory.
Last Friday state officials
announced two CWD-positive white-tailed deer were found at a Waupaca
County shooting preserve.
"I've been dreading
this day," said Todd Schill, 55, of Waupaca who has deer hunted in the
county for 40 years. "I didn't buy hunting land here to be next to
CWD."
The two CWD-positive
bucks represented the first findings of the fatal deer disease in the
central Wisconsin deer hunting hotbed.
Worse yet, the state agency
with authority over captive cervid facilities - the Department of Agriculture,
Trade and Consumer Protection - isn't doing anything to snuff it out.
And the state's wildlife
agency — the Department of Natural Resources — has become a mute, powerless
observer as CWD pops up at Wisconsin's deer farms and threatens to spread
into the immensely valuable wild deer herd around the captive facilities.
The Waupaca County case has
brought Wisconsin CWD management under new scrutiny.
For about the last decade,
state officials stopped attempts to wipe out the disease in southwestern Wisconsin
where it had spread too widely but pledged to stamp out any CWD sparks detected
in other areas of the state.
In fact, the 2012 Deer
Trustees Report, a process ordered by Gov. Scott Walker, recommends "once
the geographic context is determined, the appropriate action should be focused,
localized eradication."
You can't get more
well-defined geographical boundaries than a shooting preserve.
Yet in at least four cases
in the last three years, new CWD detections at deer farms in Oneida, Oconto,
Shawano and now Waupaca counties are being allowed to fester.
The Waupaca County facility
in question is Hunt's End East in Ogdensburg, which had 40 deer on 84 acres,
according to the the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer
Protection.
The shooting preserve is
surrounded by a single fence.
Hunt's End East and two
other nearby properties under the same ownership were placed under quarantine.
The ruling allows movement of live deer between the facilities.
Hunt's End will be allowed
to continue its business on the quarantined ranches "because properly
handled dead animals leaving the premises do not pose a disease risk," the
consumer protection agency said in a statement.
Yet there's no guarantee
carcasses will be handled properly. And keeping live deer in a contaminated
facility clearly puts wild deer in the area in jeopardy.
A single fence allows
nose-to-nose contact between animals inside and outside of the enclosure.
"Single fences are not
sufficient (to prevent disease transfer)," said Michael Samuel, University
of Wisconsin professor emeritus and an acknowledged expert on CWD. "We all
know that
Samuel said state officials
and elected representatives should review any policy that allows a
CWD-positive deer farm to continue to operate in light of the value
of wild deer and deer hunting.
"The disease doesn't
differentiate between wild deer and captive deer," Samuel said. "But
the values of the two industries are hugely different. Our wild deer
population is so much more valuable."
In addition to current economic
values, Samuel said the wild deer herd has a long-term, sustainable
benefit by supporting hunting and generating funds for wildlife
management programs. Deer hunting is to the DNR's wildlife program as football
is to the UW athletic department: by far the leading revenue producer.
Waupaca County, with a human
population of just 51,945 and a rich mix of agricultural acreage and woodlots,
is home to the state's highest deer density and is an annual
Wisconsin leader in deer kill.
The county had an estimated
deer density of 92 deer per square mile (44,000 deer on 480 square miles of
habitat) this spring, according to DNR estimates, highest in Wisconsin.
And that was before fawning season.
As the deer rut begins to
kick in this fall, there are likely more wild whitetails in the county than
human residents.
That's a lot of fuel for a
wildlife fire. All it takes is one CWD positive deer to ignite it.
If ever there were
conditions conducive for a new outbreak of CWD, it's Waupaca County.
All wild deer (1,194) tested
for CWD since 1999 in Waupaca County have been negative.
The record will show the
first CWD-positives in the county were on a shooting preserve which had animals
trucked in.
Since 2002, 17 CWD-positive
captive cervid facilities have been detected in Wisconsin; 11 have been
depopulated.
The trend now, though, is to
leave them open for business.
"From a wildlife
management perspective, we'd rather have animals removed from a CWD-positive
facility," said Tom Hauge, who retired in 2016 as DNR wildlife director.
"And sooner rather than later."
Funding is an issue, of
course.
So is will.
From an economic
perspective, the importance of protecting Wisconsin's wild deer herd
dwarfs the captive cervid lobby. Most estimates place the annual value of deer
hunting in Wisconsin at $1 billion. And that doesn't include wildlife viewing.
An estimate isn't available
for the 387 captive cervid facilities in the state, but by all measures it
is a small fraction of the value of Wisconsin's wild deer.
But it
appears the DNR has lost its will to combat CWD. And the state's
agriculture and consumer protection agency has clearly sided with the business
interests in the deer farming industry.
Just over a week ago Dan Schmidt,
editor of Deer and Deer Hunting magazine and resident of Waupaca County since
1994, wrote a column for Waupaca County News detailing the quality
and challenges facing deer hunting in the area.
"Over that past 23
years of working closely with deer hunters, wildlife biologists and
researchers, I can confidently say it does not get any better than what we have
here in Waupaca County," Schmidt wrote in his introduction.
Then toward the end he
presciently added: "This discussion doesn’t even brush the tip of the
looming chronic wasting disease iceberg. The disease isn’t here yet. Let’s
hope and pray that we don’t have to deal with it anytime soon."
That day is here. And the
state agencies responsible for protecting the county's wild deer herd
don't seem up to the task.
Hunters like Schill are
left to wonder about their future.
"Nobody seems to care
what’s going on in these deer farms," Schill said. "How do you
justify letting them operate after they have CWD? I’m really struggling with
what is going on. Somewhere along the line, we’ve got to show we care more
about our wild deer herd."
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