[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020811/ap_on_he_me/wasting_disease_1[/url]

Wis. Looks to Halt Deer Disease
Sun Aug 11,10:43 AM ET
By TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press Writer

BARNEVELD, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin has launched its third weeklong summer deer hunt in an effort to stop a deadly brain disease that has infected a herd in the southwest corner of the state.

 

The state Department of Natural Resources targeted an estimated 25,000 deer in a 374-square-mile area after 24 animals tested positive for chronic wasting disease this year. The cases marked the first time the disease had been detected east of the Mississippi River.

The first two hunts this summer killed a total of 601 deer, according to the DNR. The third hunt started Saturday, and a fourth hunt is scheduled to begin Sept. 7. Officials hope the deer remaining in the eradication zone will be killed during the regular deer hunting season that begins in late November.

"We don't want it to spread to our neck of the woods," hunter Ross Noak said Saturday as he and a friend, Scott Klinger, unloaded a doe and three fawns at a DNR checkpoint in the rolling countryside just outside Barneveld.

Chronic wasting disease — an incurable, brain-destroying illness that causes deer, elk, moose and caribou to grow thin and die — is related to mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease ( news - web sites) in humans.

Experts say there is no evidence that chronic wasting disease can infect humans, however, the World Health Organization ( news - web sites) has said people shouldn't eat any part of a deer with signs of the disease.

DNR officials hope wiping out the infected herd will preserve Wisconsin's rich deer-hunting tradition. The sport annually attracts 700,000 hunters who spend nearly $9 million on it a year, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey.

"To do nothing is just not an alternative," DNR spokesman Greg Matthews said. "The alternative is the Wisconsin deer herd crashes."

Those in favor of sending the tainted deer meat to the starving Iraqi's say I!

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Time for another food drop.

Area in Northern Michigan where I am originally from has Bovine Tuberculosis in the deer herd and for the past few years they have been issuing licenses for a deer a day at $3.00 a license, I believe.  They need to reduce the deer population to the point that the infection will not infect the deer in adjoining areas.

One problem they had was an over population of deer which in the past died each winter of starvation and then animal rights people and those who did not know correct management would put out feed for the deer in hopes of saving them.  They only succeeded in luring the deer into areas for feeding where hundreds of deer would yard up together with the sick and dying with diseases being spread to healthy deer.

The sickness which is now spreading East into the deer herds was orignally contracted by elk in the Western national parks where hunting of the herds was limited by outcrys of animal rights activists and the herds were either fed through the winters to prevent starvation or for sightseeing.

New Mexico has one confirmed case of CWD in a deer.  Subsequent to this confirmed case Texas has closed its borders to anything but natural migration of deer.  Any deer suspected of carrying the disease are to be transported to diagnostic labs in either College Station of Amarillo after which all equipment INCLUDING TRAILER are to be burned and buried.

So, each hunter spends less than $13 per year?  Me thinks not!  I bet that is just the licensing revenue.

This is almost in my back yard...We can no longer feed deer..and are subject to great fines if caught...Bird feeders can only be so many feet from the house and we are responsible to keep them cleaned up underneath.. (so deer cant feed there)...again open to interpretation followed by heavy fines.

I asked my vet about this yesterday and he says the threat of disease is real but hasnt seen any scrapie/wasting disease/mad cow in any animals he has taken care of and he has been in business for thirty years in this area.

He also said he wouldnt have a problem eating venision as long as organ meets or spinal parts arent included...though  he did admit that if you butcher your own you can control this better than if your deer to a shop that does a lot of deer during the season..
He also said that prions are the problem and are proteins there fore heating them should destroy them...

I had read that prions from CJ/D /mad cow/etc... were not readily destroyed but that may be urban legend?...
[url]http://w3.aces.uiuc.edu/AnSci/BSE/Prion_general.htm[/url]

My paranoid side says that Wi stands to loose hundreds of millions in hunting revenue that will have to be made up in taxes...and that once deer hunting is eliminated ..the state will decide we have no need for our rifles...
Only time will tell....but I have to admit this prion thing has taken away my appetite for venison

I plan on being up there in Nov for some Northern Iron-County hunting.......

Whoever wrote this article needs to get out their 4-function calculator and see if they are making sense.  They also said that the the Dept. of Natural Resources is targetting, " 25,000 deer in a 374-square-mile area."

25,000 divided by 374 = about 67 deer per square mile.  Do you think....Naaaah, the media never errs.

-Nick Viejo.