No chronic wasting disease found in Michigan deer in 2009, but testing to continueBy Howard Meyerson, The Grand Rapids Press, found at Mlive.com
February 05, 2010
Farm-raised deer, such as these shown in 2007 near Rockford. (Grand Rapids Press File Photo)LANSING -- More than 900 free-ranging Kent County whitetail deer were tested for chronic wasting disease in 2009 and not one turned up with the deadly neurological disease, state officials reported to the Natural Resources Commission Thursday.
The prognosis: All clear, probably. But a third year of testing is still in order.
"Does this mean we dodged the bullet and don't have CWD?" said Steve Schmitt a state veterinarian for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. "I can't say that, but we do feel a lot better than 2009."
It was in August 2008 that DNR officials were notified of a single Kent County captive breeding farm deer that tested positive for CWD. The event triggered broad concern among hunters, deer farmers and state wildlife and agriculture officials, who immediately pulled the trigger on Michigan's official CWD Response Plan.
The plan called for quarantining deer farms, prohibiting the use of bait in the Lower Peninsula and implementing a three-year disease testing program to see if it had spread.
"What happened in Kent County is we got to it early enough that it hadn't spread," Schmitt told commissioners.
A total of 1,134 whitetails were tested statewide in 2009, the second year of monitoring, Schmitt said. All tested negative for CWD.
In the nine-township surveillance zone around the site where the disease was found, 790 deer were tested. Another 147 Kent County deer were tested from outside the zone. The rest were tested around the state.
"While we did that the Department of Agriculture tested 3,281 captive cervids (from deer farms) and didn't find the disease," Schmitt said.
Commissioner Frank Wheatlake, of Big Rapids, inquired whether the deer farm industry was cooperating with the state and working to clean up the industry. Nearly 600 deer breeding facilities were quarantined initially. They were released over time once state investigators confirmed their compliance with state rules.
More than a year later 172 remained under quarantine and 94 had opted to close their doors rather than meet the requirements that govern animal health testing and facility security.
Schmitt said more than 100 deer farms remain under quarantine today and are likely to simply fade to black over time. The state toughened its licensing stance late last year. Deer farms had to be in compliance by Jan. 1 or their license would not be renewed.
"CWD is like a terror-attack," Schmitt said. "It's one of those things you always have to watch for, or guard against."
The state of Virginia, Schmitt reported to commissioners, just turned up a CWD-positive deer that had crossed into the state from West Virginia.
Three years of testing is needed, according to Schmitt, to be comfortably assured that the disease is not present in Michigan's wild deer herd. He said it is also important to maintain baiting restrictions and to keep infected animals or carcasses from being brought by hunters into Michigan from states where the disease is prevalent.
E-mail Howard Meyerson at hmeyerson@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/HMeyersonhttp://www.mlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2010/02/no_chronic_wasting_disease_fou.html
