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Chronic Wasting Disease updates and other CWD happenings in Wisconsin

August 19, 2002 Madison, Wisconsin. Dane County Task Force Meeting on Chronic Wasting Disease. Dane County finally closed the door on the DNRs application to use the county's landfill as a repository for the millions of pounds of potentially infected deer carcasses from the Deer Wars. A resolution petitioning the DNR to halt the eradication program until statewide testing was completed was narrowly defeated 6 to 5 - with urban interests outvoting their rural counterparts who have first hand experience with the issues.

Let Us See the Science. Among the people recruited to support the DNR program were representatives from Whitetails Unlimited who sang a now quite familiar refrain from the DNR song book: "We support the DNRs eradication program because they've based it on the best science available, tra-lah, tra-lah." What is extremely interesting is that NO scientific papers nor professional journal articles have been offered as credible evidence of this so-called "best science" upon which the program is based. What is evident when one searches for scientific comment on the subject is the unanimous agreement on the uncertainty about its origins, methods of transmission, its genetic basis, and the extent of its actual presence in deer. As a disease that heretofore was of interest to only a few wildlife officials with a true scientific orientation, the accumulation of scientific understanding is a mighty small pile. . . . and most of what is there is theory and educated guesses that has yet to be scientifically tested.

Readers of this page who believe that the Wisconsin DNR program has a solid foundation in published CWD research are invited to send these references to roscoe@chorus.net

July 18, 2002 Vermont Township, Wisconsin. Drive By Shooting Incident. An enjoyable evening of barbecue and conversation on John Wacker's deck was drawing to close at 10:30 pm, when suddenly a searchlight breaks open the darkness to scan the yard and field to our left. Three seconds later, "kaboom"- a cannon shot rings out - then a rustling in the grass and cracking sounds - perhaps breaking branches but also sounding like pistol shots.

After picking ourselves off the floor and a "Holy S**t" in unison, we realized the Deer War had been literally brought to our back door.

Upon investigation we discovered two USDA employees were road hunting less than 200 feet from John's house. After being challenged for their authority to hunt that land, the shooters alleged that the deer was in the "right of way" so they could shoot it no matter who owned the adjacent property. This assertion flies in the face of the searchlight scanning the field shortly before the kill and that the dead deer was drug from the field in the vicinity of where we saw the searchlight.

But let's set this factual argument aside for a moment. What is not in dispute is:

  • Shining Deer at Night
  • Road Hunting from the County Highway
  • Shooting at Night (10:30 PM)
  • Shooting within 200 feet of a residence

I thought about who might have been in the line of fire: kids out chasing fireflies that warm Thursday evening or camping out or maybe ole' Rover out for his evening constitutional. The extremes of the DNR in pursuit of their goal have gone beyond reason. This is just plain stupid. A recipe for disaster. If a hunter got caught doing this he'd - rightly - be strung up by his "privates."

An indication of the arrogance of the DNR is reflected in the quote of spokesperson Greg Matthews who brushed off the incident with: "There are people that just don't like what we're doing and they have made it clear that they will do everything to stop this shooting not matter what. . . If god and the 12 disciples came out there and shot deer they wouldn't be happy." --Ross Reinhold, Report from Ground Zero in the Hot Zone

July 22, 2002 Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Dane County Task Force Meeting on Chronic Wasting Disease

Opposition remained against using the county's landfill as a repository for the millions of pounds of potentially infected deer carcasses from the Deer Wars. While many task force members and technical experts believe properly conducted incineration is the safest means, the DNR persists in pursuing landfills because they don't believe they can afford the cost of proper incineration.

In comments made by Tom Hauge of the DNR, I noted some new spin. The one week a month "summer shooting periods" are now being described as not being conducted for "eradication" but for the purpose of collecting samples for validation of testing procedures. Seems like a case of the goal shifting to be more consistent with their lack of success in killing large numbers of animals.

Hauge also made reference to a lower kill target for the upcoming season (dropping from 25,000 deer to 18,000) without specifically mentioning that Eradication itself had been reconsidered. It seems the DNR is now considering the possibility that killing 25,000 deer is simply an impossible goal and thus is doing early damage control.

A week earlier, another DNR official - deputy director Sarah Hurley - orchestrated another preliminary Protect the DNR Posterior move. An article in the Rocky Mountain News quoted her as indicating that every area in the state is a potential source of the disease-causing prion protein because ". . . people from every county have hunted in the 361-square mile area of southwest Wisconsin where 18 infected deer were discovered." What the department doesn't know is whether those hunters killed any deer infected with chronic wasting disease and, if they did, what happened to parts of the carcass, including the head, that contain the deadly infectious agents, she said.

Thus if this fall or winter the DNR finds Chronic Wasting Disease elsewhere in Wisconsin, deputy Hurley has laid the ground work for a handy theory that allows them to continue to maintain that Mount Horeb is the Garden of Eden for CWD in Wisconsin.

The most interesting presentation of the evening was by John Stauber, an investigative reporter and co-author of "Mad Cow, USA." Stauber has talked to scores of researchers and studied the professional literature on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSEs) of which CWD is the deer variety of this general disease. The full text of his presentation is available here. Stauber's work with bovine form of TSE (Mad Cow disease) has lead him to investigate the game feed industry and changes in feeding practices. In our zeal to keep costs low and avoid wasting animal tissue, animal parts that formerly were "wasted" are now reprocessed into animal feed. For example, Stauber cited that in 1995 26,000 road-killed deer in Wisconsin were reprocessed into animal feed. Get the picture? How many of these road kill might have had CWD; where did this feed go, etc.?

I found most interesting the following: "The idea that the Eradication Zone is a unique hot spot in Wisconsin or the Upper Midwest is ridiculous, wishful thinking at best, and to proceed with current plans based on this assumption is a huge misstep and waste of time, resources, and public credibility. . . . The DNR has already spent almost a million dollars killing and testing deer in the Eradication Zone. Had that money been spent on testing statewide, we would have much better data on the extent of the problem and how to handle it. Instead, we are likely throwing good money after bad pursuing the myth that the practices that spread CWD in the Eradication Zone are unique, when these practices are widespread."

The Madison Capital Times has an interesting article running parallel to Stauber concerns about animal feed and feed supplements being a source of TSE & Chronic Wasting Disease. Supplemental feeding practices in Vermont township were a possible gateway to the disease and if the theory is borne out, many areas across the state and nation will be at similar risk.

After listening to representatives of the Wisconsin Commercial Deer and Elk Farmers Association defend their position against mandatory testing, defend their membership as a potential entry point for the disease, and then applaud the DNR's extermination/eradication effort, I was struck by an interesting coincidence. All the groups with some culpability for the disease entering Wisconsin are rallying around this idea of "lets come together on this eradication plan and stamp it out in Mt. Horeb." The DNR is culpable for allowing massive deer overpopulation which is a formula for the spread of all sorts of disease. The State Dept of Agriculture is culpable for failing to require adequate CWD testing of private game farms and preserves. The USDA is culpable for sweeping CWD under the rug when they have known about it for years. The Quality Deer Management Association is culpable for their supplemental deer feeding programs which may have been the source of CWD via infected feed. The Game Farm Associations are culpable for resisting mandatory CWD testing procedures that could have prevented an infected animal from being imported into the state.

All these groups are united in one set of related ideas. They don't want to talk about the "cause" of CWD; they want to buy the idea it is only in one place; and they want to kill it in this one place and make it go away.
--Ross Reinhold, Report from Ground Zero in the Hot Zone

July 30, 2002 Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin Outdoor News Statewide Testing of 36 - 50,000 deer for CWD Editor Dean Bortz

A few quotes from the above story:

Right now, work is under way to step up testing capabilities at the University of Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, but even if that work is accomplished in time, there’s no way the state lab will be able to conduct tests on 50,000 samples in two or three months.

“We won’t be able to provide results in the time frame most folks would hope. It may be months before they hear about it. . ."

As of July 26, the DNR had not yet received results from the 262 deer that were shot during the June shooting period in the CWD Eradication Zone.*

Editor comment: The USDA and DNR are against certifying private labs to do CWD testing. . . which is really strange given the great need for hunters to have an economical, reliable, and quick test to determine the degree of risk their venison came from a CWD diseased animal. Meanwhile while Wisconsin fiddles, Colorado has developed a rapid screening test and enhanced its facilities to allow results "faster at less expense for hunters," said Barb Powers of the Colorado State University diagnostic laboratories. "Our goal is to have tests completed on each animal in less than two weeks."

*August 2, 2002 Madison, Wisconsin June Kill CWD Testing Results. On the August 2nd evening news show, Wisconsin Weekend, DNR manager Tom Hauge reported that 6 of the 262 deer (2.3%) from the June shooting were positive for CWD.

At over $1000 per deer harvested, the cost to confirm what was already known (approximately 2% infection rate) is over $260,000. At present the DNR plans to go back to the well two more times - raising the total cost to confirm what is already known to well over 1 million dollars. Wow! Who would have guessed that Chronic Wasting Disease actually refers to the incurable of disease of government bureaucrats that leads to excessive Wasting of taxpayer money!!

The specter of government wasting inspired one resident to recall an old English nursery rhyme (1764)
that went as follows:

They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own,
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

. . . And to recompose it into the following:

They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal a deer from off the road,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals dead the common deer.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own,
But leaves the DNR fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

--Town of Vermont Nursery Rhyme c. 2002

- - Thanks to Mark Kessenich for finding and passing on this gem.

The Science of CWD

"Where's the Beef II?" The political management of Data and Statistics continues

Articles and Papers on Wisconsin Chronic Wasting Disease and DNR proposals

Contact Information

Chronic Wasting Disease - CWD Links and Other Resources
CAIDS-WI.org - Citizens Against Irrational Deer Slaughter.