The Missouri Whitetail Breeders and Hunting Ranch Association sponsored what they deemed a town hall meeting Friday night in Macon to discuss Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) and the future of their industry.
Keith Warren, an outdoor television producer and deer farmer from Texas, and Dr. Steven M. Presley, a professor at Texas Tech University, were brought in to address the crowd of roughly 100 people.
Many of the people in attendance were directly tied to the deer farming and high-fence hunting community. Others were simply concerned citizens from the area who have unfortunately found themselves in the midst of hard times as deer hunters and landowners. One thing is certain, there is still a lot of confusion out there about what CWD is and what EHD is, and how they relate to one another.
According to the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance, CWD is a contagious neurological disease affecting deer, elk and moose. It causes a characteristic spongy degeneration of the brains of infected animals resulting in emaciation, abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death.
Since CWD was first discovered in Missouri in 2010, the Missouri Department of Conservation has taken action to drastically reduce the number of deer on the landscape in the CWD Containment Zone (Adair, Chariton, Linn, Macon, Randolph, and Sullivan Counties) in efforts to eradicate, or at least slow the spread of the disease. Deer numbers in the area are now only a fraction of what they were a few years ago and that has many residents furious. The question is, do those residents even know who or what to be mad at?
EHD is caused by a midge that bites deer and infects them. Some deer survive, but many die from infection. EHD has played a huge role in quickly, drastically reducing the deer numbers in much of Missouri. But EHD is not spread from deer to deer, and comes and goes from a landscape. EHD outbreaks can be recovered from. CWD is different, it is always fatal and becomes progressively worse with time.
Warren is an entertainer who makes his living hunting behind high-fences. A quick glimpse at his list of sponsors and a rundown of where he hunts totally discredits anything he had to say to the crowd. So it wasn't a disappointment his presence consisted of no more sustenance than a shallow rallying cry of, "They're taking our freedom."
I was more interested to hear what Dr. Presley would have to say about CWD, but instead of really addressing the issue of CWD, Dr. Presley spent nearly all his time talking about EHD, which has been very prevalent in Missouri the last two years and has been responsible for huge die-offs, catastrophic die-offs, of deer.
A sound voice of reason in attendance belonged to Missouri representative Tim Remole. He spoke about the need for communication between all stakeholder parties - MDC, Department of Agriculture, deer breeders, landowners and hunters. The health of Missouri's deer herd matters to a lot of people in different ways and Remole has heard it from all sides and feels a balance must be struck.
So far, a total of 11 cases of CWD have been confirmed in captive deer and 10 cases in free-ranging deer within two miles of the captive facility in Macon County.
Where CWD in Missouri originated from has not, and never will be, determined for certain. What is for certain is that CWD showed up in Missouri and MDC had to make an initial plan to deal with it. The plan seems to be working.
A recent MDC press release stated, "Following the testing of 3,666 free-ranging deer harvested during and after the 2013 deer-hunting season, the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) has detected no additional cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Missouri free-ranging deer."
This is good news for everyone. Hopefully the herd-thinning efforts worked, but it would be a miracle if every CWD deer has wiped off our landscape.
"While I am cautiously optimistic that these latest test results suggest our efforts to limit the spread of CWD may be working, the threat of this infectious disease remains significant," MDC state wildlife veterinarian Kelly Straka said. "Therefore, continued surveillance is important."
MDC has promised to adjust our deer management plan with regulations to reflect the current situations we face. One of those situations is how to manage deer breeding facilities and hunting ranches in the future. Hopefully, the citizens of Missouri will know soon what the future of deer regulations will look like.
See you down the trail ...
III
Brandon Butler is an outdoors columnist for the News Tribune. Contact him at [email protected]