Scientific opposition falls on deaf ears and closed minds. . . Wisconsin DNR Board rubber stamps CWD Intensive Harvest Zone - Chronic Wasting Disease package
June 25, 2002 Racine Wisconsin. DNR Board approves giving DNR administrators sweeping powers to enlist hunters and landowners in an aggressive campaign to exterminate wild deer in a 500+* square mile area of Southwestern Wisconsin. Key elements of this package include:
- Deer
populations be reduced to as close to zero as possible
- Special
sharpshooting powers by regular and "temporary" DNR employees,
including Night Hunting, Road Hunting and Shining Deer!!
- Use of aircraft for drives and shooting
- Landowner shooting from tractors
- Shooting from vehicles by DNR employees
- Rifles allowed in shootgun only zones
- Power to expand or create new Eradication Zones
- Continuous open shooting season running from October 24-January 31
)
See digest of proposal at: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/news/rbnews/2002/061402co.htm
Several landowners in the affected area challenged the scientific foundation supporting the severity of the action, noted the repeated inattention to important safety and human health details in DNR action plans, and demanded that the DNR place a higher value on protecting the environment, health and safety of people who live in the targeted Kill Zone. Several underscored the War Zone mentality created by the program. Town of Vermont farmer/B&B operator Mark Kessenich appealed to the DNR to honor their Mission Statement and find a way out of "their blame and shame" mode of action. Spring Green area farmer Dick Limmex decried the woefully inadequate sampling methods and the impossibility of implementing the same dose of strong medicine should Chronic Wasting Disease be found elsewhere in the state. Alan Zeller, representing several landowners in the western part of the Kill Zone, suggested failure to moderate several extreme measures of the plan may force legal action in order to prevent the abridgement of constitutional rights.
Other testimony opposing the DNR proposals for the Intensive Harvest Zone included:
Dr. Max Rosenbaum, Ph.D.
Microbiology - former Director of Biosafety at University of Wisconsin
"From
what we have observed we're not facing a rampaging epidemic such as Foot
and Mouth disease. What we do know is that an exotic, contagious disease
is in Wisconsin. It must be studied on a proper scientific basis so findings
can be made to combat this and other newly emerging infectious diseases.
. . . Never-the-less I believe that the present concept of a massive,
ill-prepared eradication program that does not anticipate its inherent
problems will not only defeat its containment concept but will acerbate
it and perhaps even lead to greater problems of interspecies transfer
then we currently envision."
Dr. Anthony Grabski, Ph.D.
Bacteriology - currently a Supervising Protein Biochemist
".
. . genetic studies have revealed that in species susceptible to prion
disease, roughly 40% of the population is susceptible and 60% resistant
to the disease (Stephenson, 2002). Random slaughter will remove these
potentially resistant animals thereby upsetting the balance of natural
selection and survival of the fittest. . . . Selective culling may offer
the greatest promise of reducing CWD prevalence, particularly when infected
populations are detected early in the course of an epidemic and tested
aggressively. (Barlow, 1996; Gross and Miller, 2001). This type of management
is a far cry from mass extermination, may actually have a chance for success,
and could satisfy hunters, landowners, and politicians alike."
Dr. John Barnes, D.V.M. Veternarian
- naturalist and operator of Prairie Spirit Wildlife Sanctuary
"For
the past three decades Wisconsin has embarked on a course of producing
an overabundance of deer through their maximum sustained yield management
plan. . . when an overabundance exists in any given species natural limiting
factors such as disease and starvation come forward to rebalance that
population. It was inevitable that some sort of disease would become manifest
due to the density produced by current management practices. . . . I would
hope that it has become evident to all of you that massive shooting campaigns
represent a political response not a biological solution."
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* The kill zone has expanded from 361 square miles to over 500 square miles when the DNR discovered that their circles drawn on maps could not be practically used as boundaries of the zone. So the area had to be expanded to use roads as boundaries that could be clearly identified - which is how the other 155 deer management areas have been traditionally defined. Naturally this increase in coverage means that well over 25,000 deer are now on death row awaiting execution.
"Where's
the Beef II?" The political management of Data and Statistics continues
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