Wisconsin's CWD effort

[RGK]

I am one of 15 people who sit on Wisconsin's newly formed CWD Stakeholders Advisory Group. Following are some of my notes from the first two meetings.

I thought the first meeting went well. I came away with a positive feeling. There were 15 men at the table. Some were at large members and others were there representing various orgs. and concerns. Secretary Hassett was supposed to be attendance but felt his resent resignation would be a disruption so Tom Hauge read a statement on Scott's behalf.

The talks were pleasant and professional. Next month we will be given a presentation by DNR scientists that will be recorded for all to see when it is placed on the DNR website made for this advisory group. On that page you will be able to see the faces, names, bio's and contact information for each member. We reviewed a press release that will put out shortly. This meeting and the August meeting will lay the foundation for the next 5 meeting in which we will formulate recommendations for the DNR.

This is our goal or task question.

How should WI manage CWD to minimize the impact of the Disease on Wisconsin's free ranging deer population, the habitats and biological systems that include deer, the economy, hunter, land owners and others that benifit from a healthy deer herd?

Once the site is up and running, I will post the link. This is an open forum and the public is welcomed to attend and at some point we will find a time for public comments. This meeting saw 1 or 2 members of the public and a reporter from the Cap Times so you will be able to read his views on what happened today. We were there for 7 hours and there was not a dull moment in the whole day. I learned a lot and it would take a great deal of typing to share that. The following two pages were given to us and since everything we do is public knowledge, I will share them.

 

 

[RGK]

The DNR has updated it's CWD website to include the Bio's for each board member and it added the CWD handbook we were all given. It also added the meeting minutes from the first and the agenda for the 2nd meeting. you can read it all at

 http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/whealth/issues/CWD/dialogue.htm

Below is the piece I wrote for the Wisconsin Bowhunters web site that covers a little about the group and the first meeting.

On Saturday July 21st, the first of 7 planned monthly meetings of the DNR formed "Stakeholder Advisory Group" (SAG) was held at the DNR service Center, Fish Hatchery Road, Fitchburg, WI to discuss the issue of CWD in the state. The goal of this process is to engage a diverse group of people in a dialog to guide the Department in future management of the disease. The group’s charter or mission question was stated as such:

"How should WI manage CWD to minimize the impact of the disease on Wisconsin’s free ranging deer population, the habitats and biological systems that include deer, the economy, hunters, landowners and others that benefit from a healthy deer herd?"

My name is Ron Kulas and I am one of 15 members of the "SAG" I am a WBH member from Delafield. I was contacted by Todd Zeuske and asked to attend these meetings for the WBH and to share with you what this group is doing. This group is made up of two member types, both of which are impacted by CWD. Those groups are

1. Partner organizations with a stake in CWD management. (Representative member)

2. Citizens with an interest in CWD and herd management (At large member)

The partner organizations that were present were:

Business interests (sporting goods) Mills Fleet Farm

Conservation Congress

Farmed Cervid Industry (deer/elk farmers)

Food Pantries

WI Assoc of Meat Producers

WI Bowhunters Assoc.

WI Deer Hunters Assoc.

WI Deer Hunters Coalition

The "At Large" members are made up of:

An out-state hunter (WI hunter not in the CWD zone) A new resident hunter recently returned to WI A non-hunter A HRZ hunter A HRZ Land owner A DEZ hunter A DEZ Land owner

The geographical make up of the members of the group shows members from:

Appleton, Baraboo, Barneveld, Blue Mounds, Delafield, Eagle River, Fitchburg, Jefferson, Lodi, Madison, Platteville and Stanley

This first meeting was primarily organizational but it laid the foundation for a discussion of the issues and impacts as well as the goals for the group. The August meeting will provide members with information from the group’s Technical Advisory team made up of DNR Scientists/biologists, The Dept of Agriculture, Health and family services and law enforcement, to name a few. After that, the remaining 5 meetings will be used by the group to formulate recommendations to the DNR Secretary who will then forward the group’s findings to the Natural resources board and then the legislature with public input and dialog along the way.

The public will have the opportunity to follow the progress of the Advisory Group on the CWD website at  http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/whealth/issues/cwd/

Members of the public are encouraged to observe the group in action. The public may engage members of the SAG during breaks in the working sessions. Members will also be available to the public outside the advisory group sessions as contact information for all the members will be available on the web site.

I will do my best to keep the members of WBH informed of what the group is doing.

Respectfully submitted

Ron Kulas

[RGK]

Saturday (Aug. 18th) was a very informative day. I have to say that it was hard to be in attendance as both my Sons were getting awards today at our Scout Troop’s Court of Honor and I have never missed one of these in my history with the Scouts. Nevertheless, I was out the door this morning at 7:30 and got home tonight around 6:30. Today’s meeting was very well attended by the group. There was only one member who was at the first meeting who was not in attendance today. This was not the meeting to miss if you were looking for information on CWD. We also picked up two members to our board. The room at the Lowell center was huge and had enough seats for the general public to attend (around 50 seats) but only 5 or 6 showed up. The entire day was captured by an audio visual person and the entire 7 ½ hours will be posted on the CWD website.

Today was filled with presentations by UW Madison Scientists. We had much to cover and questions made each presentation run long so we skipped our lunch break and had a working lunch while presenters continued with their talks. even with that we ran out of time so two presenters agreed to come to the Sept. Meeting to give their reports. I am looking forward to both of them as one speakers topic is “what do Wisconsinites think” The presenter is the research sociologist for the DNR and the other is the CWD project leader with the USGS National Wildlife health center. His topic is “What are other states doing about CWD.

Before we started, Each member gave a talk on their outreach activities with the public and how they were spreading the word about the work we are doing. Next we were given two questions to answer after we completed listening to the presenters. The questions were:

“What are the likely long term effects of CWD on WI, it’s citizens, livestock and natural landscape? “

“Is CWD a disease that can be eradicated?, contained to S.W. Wisconsin given the current social and political environment or even if nothing was held sacred and all avenues were explored?

The first speaker of the day was Scott Caven who is a UW Madison Extension Professor, Forest and wildlife ecology. His topic was CWD: why should we care? His concern is that CWD has dropped off most people’s radar and that it is not getting enough attention. He gave an over view of the past 5 years and what we have learned and what some of the successes and failures have been. His job was to remind us about why we were there. His was not a scientific speech but rather a plea to care. When he was done, one member asked him directly if CWD can be stopped/eradicated........ Scott’s answer was “No but it can be managed”

The second speaker was Jim Kazmierczak, Epidemiologist, Division of public health. Jim gave a talk on the human health risks. He said that Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD) has been around for more than 80 years. A new variant strain was discovered in 1995 In England but there has never been a case of it in the US. Scrappies has been around since the 1600's and has never transferred to humans even with humans consuming all parts of the sheep (including brains) There has never been a cross species transfer. He said that Scrappies can be found in the muscle (meat) of sheep and then he said that CWD has been found in venison. This is the first time I had heard that CWD prions were found in the meat of deer.

He talked about how People have been eating CWD infected meat in WI for years and it is not transferring. He mentioned that when a deer that is tested, shows up positive for CWD. The hunter is contacted and in most cases the hunter tells the DNR that the meat has been consumed. The DNR and the UW are keeping a record of all the people who have eaten known infected deer so that over time they will be able to see if they come down with CJD.

They are also monitoring all death certificates and looking over all the records of people that had human prion disease. He also noted that cases of human CJD are not more common in locations where CWD infected Cervids live and has been monitoring that for decades with data from Colorado. He gave a break down of all tests that have been done on trying to force a deer to human transfer without success. The work they have done over the years is very impressive. They can prove that Bovine to human transfer is possible (Mad cow in England) but not Cervid to human and that included injecting CWD infected brain matter directly into the brains of humanized mice. All of the tests done to prove or disprove a species transfer are done by this method and if the transfer occurs then they test the two subject animals again and this is done by feeding the animal brain matter to see if it can transfer. Most of those tests prove that oral transfer is far less likely but they did not completely rule out the possibility. He did say that in the last 30 years that there has been ample opportunity for human consumption of CWD infected meat and yet no cases of cross species transfer has occurred. He then said that the World health org. and the CDC state that there is no scientific evidence that CWD can cause human illness and that there is a species barrier that can’t be breeched even in test tubes. And that experimental inoculations of humanized mice (mice altered to express the human prion protien) with CWD prions resulted in zero infections. When asked how long CWD has most likely been in WI, the answer was “Decades”. When he was finished, he too was asked the question “Do you think CWD can be stopped/eradicated......... He would not give an answer.

The next speaker was Chad Johnson who is a scientist at the school of veterinary medison for UW Madison. His talk was on the risk of CWD transfers to other species as well as humans. He spoke of tests done to prove a link between deer and cattle and trying to transfer CWD to cows. He stated that a direct species transfer will take place if CWD brain matter in injected into a living cow’s brain. No such transfer has taken place through oral tests of tests of close quarter co habitation. These tests have been going on for decade in Colorado because the beef industry out West is very concerned. The UW is in the 7th year of a ten year study of a field test where CWD infected deer are living with healthy cattle. They keep bringing in sick deer to live with the cows but the cows never get sick. Not all deer are susceptible to CWD. Mule deer are the most susceptible, followed by whitetail and then elk. One moose has been known to get CWD but it is thought to have been a spontaneous or natural occurrence. Similar but still a species away are the Fallow and red deer. They too are not as likely to get CWD. No cases have ever been found in Caribou or antelope.

No deer to avian transfers have ever been found and this was done to disprove a link to scavenger birds such as crows. He was confident in the species barrier with birds. Dogs, skunks and raccoons tested also showed that CWD can’t be transferred to those animals and he felt that this is due to an evolutionary barrier due to these types of scavengers being long known to eat sick and diseased carrion. Some of the animals that showed an ability to contract CWD from deer are mice and voles as well as large cats (cougars) but not domestic house cats. Again, these are tests done by injecting infected brain matter into these animals. It is not as likely to transfer orally. When asked to give an example of how infectious brain matter was, he said it was the most infectious of all the matter compared to lymph or spinal matter. Asked how brain matter compared to saliva, he said that brain matter was around 10,000 times more infectious and when oral doses were given it was in large amounts over at least 5 times to ensure a reasonable amount of the CWD prions were transferred. This presentation was the most interesting of the day.

The next presenter was Richard Bishop, Professor Emeritus, Agriculture and applied economics UW Madison. He spoke on the economic impacts of CWD on the deer herd. He spoke of surveys conducted with resident and non resident hunters and their views on how their hunting habits have changed since CWD was discovered. His findings show that there are 6000 fewer non resident hunters in WI and 20,000 resident hunters due to CWD.

When surveyed, hunters were asked what would they be willing to pay per year over a five year period to ensure CWD was eradicated. That is, what is the max they would pay “extra” if given a guarantee that CWD would be gone in 5 years. The answer was $24 a year. (Big spenders huh?)

The next speaker was Erik Osnas who is an assistant scientist, forest and wildlife ecology UW Madison. He is an ecologist who is studying trends and theoretical models of the spread of CWD. He again agreed that CWD has been here for decades. He was the least impressive speaker in the bunch but that was due to his poor communications abilities. When questioned about his models, even he had little faith in them. We could not nail him down or get him to commit to any predictions of future infection percentages.

The last speaker of the day was Joel Pederson, Associate Professor Soil Science UW Madison. His topic was the role of environmental contamination. Joel is the guy who came out with the report that the soil is 700% more infections that deer to deer contact. He pointed out that it is actually 680%.

He told us of the many studies done both in the US and abroad using deer and scrappie infected sheep which mimic each other very closely. One o the interesting comments he made was that there are deer that are CWD carriers meaning that they never show clinical signs but when tested, the prions are evident. All the stories we have heard about the deer or sheep that were moved out of areas and then allowed back in after as much as 16 years only to have the new animals come down with the disease are from his studies.

He confirms that once it’s in the soil, it is there to stay but he could not say for how long. He would say that it would be at least 16 years based on tests. He has tested a wide range of soils from around the state and some are more likely to allow the infected prions to cling to them than are others. Clay was the most likely to hold the prions. He has even done tests where CWD prion infected clay was injected into the brains of healthy animals and they came down with the disease. He even states that structures/buildings that were cleaned and then healthy animals placed back into them got sick indicating that other surfaces can hold the prions. The discussion went to licking branches and rubs and scrapes made by infected deer and that they would most likely remain infected. When asked how he could test the amount of infected prions in soils and other structures we were told that there is currently no test equipment that will detect the prions and that the tests with live deer have indicated that this is so. Brain matter taken from infected deer was placed in soil and allowed to decompose over many years and then the soil was washed and both the soil and the wash water was injected into the brains of healthy animals which then got sick. When asked if CWD can be stopped/eradicated he said. “No”

A lot of questions were asked of all the presenters and in all, I felt we got a great deal out of the day. I took a lot of notes and what I have typed above is only a brief bit of what each speaker presented. I am sure I have left a lot out. We were told that if we came up with any questions over the next month that we could submit them to the group of presenters and they would respond.