Chronic wasting disease is currently an inconvenience to some area hunters, and maybe only an afterthought to others. Like it or not, CWD is a serious concern. Understanding what is at stake, knowing the rules and following them should be on every deer hunter’s agenda this fall.
Chronic wasting disease is an always fatal, prion-caused neurological condition that kills cervids — elk, deer and moose. CWD is transmitted by direct animal-to-animal contact through urine, saliva and feces. The prions — bits of misfolded protein that have the ability to spread by making other proteins misfold — are known to stay active in the soil for more than 10 years.
The disease attacks the brain and spinal cord of the deer, much like mad cow disease in cattle. It is similar to Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans, although CWD is not known to be transmissible to people.
Beginning with its discovery in a captive mule deer in Colorado in 1967, CWD has spread to more than 20 states and two Canadian provinces. This includes Ohio, New York, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The rules could affect you.
Last November, my brother Frank harvested a beautiful nine-point buck on state game lands in northern Blair County. He had it processed at Gummos in Halfmoon Township. This fall, that game land became part of an expanded disease management area. If he hunts there, it will be illegal for him to have his deer processed in Centre County.
WHAT IS AT STAKE?
No one knows how chronic wasting disease will play out in Pennsylvania, but it is almost a given that the disease will continue to expand across the state. It is in the best interest of our deer herd, wildlife lovers and deer hunters to contain that spread or have it happen as slowly as possible.
We know how CWD has progressed in Wyoming — it encompasses the entire state and it has greatly reduced the state’s deer population. The results of a five-year study in Wyoming were released last summer. The study’s authors noted that CWD had likely caused a population of mule deer in their study area to decrease by 50 percent in just about a decade. Sharp declines began occurring shortly after CWD was discovered there. The authors predicted that, by 2056, mule deer will be virtually extinct in their study area in Wyoming.
Pennsylvania has three disease management areas that have special regulations to help contain the disease. DMA 1 is in Adams and York counties, where CWD was first discovered in captive deer. Chronic wasting disease has not shown up in the wild herd there.
DMA 2 is in Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fulton, Huntingdon and Somerset counties. In July, it was expanded north and east by the Pennsylvania Game Commission to include part of Franklin County, more of Blair and Cambria counties, and a small piece of Clearfield County. At one point north of Tyrone, the DMA 2 boundary is less than a mile from Centre County.
The newest disease management area — DMA 3 — is in Clearfield, Indiana and Jefferson counties. Part of DMA 3’s northern boundary is I-80, just a stone’s throw from where Pennsylvania elk sometimes roam. If not contained, CWD could devastate the state’s elk herd.
Pennsylvania’s wild elk herd is a treasure that so far has been untouched by CWD. Hundreds of thousands of people travel into Pennsylvania’s elk range each year just for a chance to see a few of these majestic animals. Thousands of hunters apply each summer for a chance to hunt elk in the Keystone State — a process that helps to keep the population in check, lessens human/elk conflicts and provides a 100-animal sample for CWD monitoring.
THE DISEASE MANAGEMENT AREA RULES
Four rules are in effect for each DMA:
■ It is illegal to remove a harvested deer or high-risk parts of deer from any DMA. Harvested deer must be processed within the DMA and only the meat, hide and antlers can be taken home from the butcher.
■ The use of any deer urine-based attractants in any outdoor setting is forbidden in the DMAs.
■ It is illegal to feed wild deer or elk in a DMA.
■ Deer or fawns from any DMA are not allowed to be rehabilitated.
Robyn Graboski, who runs Centre Wildlife Care in Port Matilda, is still allowed to take in orphaned fawns from places outside of DMAs, but that might soon change. The northern boundary of DMA 2 is just 16 miles from Centre Wildlife. Any additional expansion of DMA 2 could make it illegal for that facility to rehabilitate deer.
“Last spring, we took care of 13 fawns that were released back into the wild,” Graboski shared. “One fawn was brought to us after it was found stranded in a stream near Altoona. Unfortunately, that one had to be returned because it came from a disease management area. If DMA 2 is moved farther north, we will not be allowed to take any deer unless the Game Commission changes the rules.”
These rules are important. Graboski understands and follows the rules, but some hunters ignore them. According to Wayne Laroche, director of the Game Commission’s Bureau of Wildlife Management, his agency is actively enforcing the rules.
“During the past two years, over 175 people have been issued citations for violating CWD management rules,” Laroche said. “Offenses included the importation of high-risk cervid parts from CWD areas in other states, feeding deer in a DMA and transporting deer from a CWD area.”
The PGC understands the social and economic benefits that deer and elk provide the people of Pennsylvania and how that could be negatively impacted by CWD. According to Laroche, the rate of infection in wild deer in DMA 2 is less than 2 percent. If hunters follow the rules and the agency’s management practices in that area work, he hopes to keep it at that rate or even lower it.
Only time will tell of our success at controlling CWD. You can contribute to the program’s success by adhering to the DMA regulations and applying for a special DMA deer harvest permit, if any are available.
