Photo: Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks & Tourism
Deer that are in the advanced stages of chronic wasting disease typically look sickly and exhibit sluggish behavior.
If you haven’t heard, there’s been a new case of chronic wasting disease discovered in Pennsylvania.
The question still to be answered is what comes next.
Officials from the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Department of Agriculture announced a few days ago that a captive deer from a Franklin County game preserve tested positive for the disease. The 4-year-old buck, which was born and raised on a farm in Fulton County, is the first captive animal to test positive for the disease since 2014.
It was confirmed to be sick after it was harvested by a hunter behind the fence in November.
Chronic wasting disease, otherwise known as CWD, is an always-fatal ailment that strikes cervids, including not only white-tailed deer but mule deer, elk and moose, too. There is no reliable live animal test to check for it and no way to treat a deer that has it.
Agriculture secretary Russell Redding said in the initial press release that the disease poses “no danger to public health and has never been associated as a human health concern.”
This one deer is surely going to impact hunters, though.
Whenever a CWD-positive deer shows up on the landscape, be it a farmed or wild one, the state’s response plan calls for drawing a 10-mile circle around its location. Within those boundaries, special rules go into place, limiting the use of urine-based scent attractants, banning he movement of certain high-risk deer parts, banning the feeding of deer and more.
There are three such “disease management areas” on the landscape now.
This sick deer, being in Franklin County, is right between two of them.
Disease management area 1, which is where the first CWD-positive deer in the state was ever found, lies to the east. Disease management area 2, the only place where the disease has been found in wild, free-ranging deer, lies to the west.
Area 1 hasn’t had a deer test positive since 2012 and was eligible to, perhaps, go away later this year. Area 2 was, again perhaps, based on the actions of commissioners, set to become its own wildlife management area this fall.
What this latest sick deer will do, if anything, to any or all of those plans remains to be seen, said Travis Lau, press secretary for the Game Commission.
“We don’t really have a plan at this point,” Lau said.
The commission is still awaiting test results on 3,000 hunter-killed deer from last fall. It’s plan is to wait and see if any of those deer test positive for the disease, and where any sick deer come from.
“Then we will see what we need to do as far as adjusting,” Lau added.
There’s a “fairly big gap” between Area 1 and this latest deer, though, so it may not impact its future, he said.
But there is a chance the sick deer will lead to either an expanded area 2 or creation of yet another disease management area.
In the meantime, the department of agriculture has placed the two deer farms involved under quarantine. They’ll remain under the restrictions that accompany that for five years after the last deer has been removed.
When that clock starts ticking depends on what they do next, said David Wolfgang, state veterinarian with the Department of Agriculture.
Some facilities depopulate – or euthanize all of their animals – immediately, he said. Others, namely hunting preserves like these two that are mindful of the investment they have in their animals, opt to keep their animals and continue selling hunts.
“It’s a combination of balancing animal health, business models and protecting environmental health for the sake of wild deer,” Wolfgang said.
Owners of the Franklin County preserve and agricultural officials were scheduled to meet today to go over options, Wolfgang said.
Regardless of what happens, he added that agriculture officials are “confident” the two farms have any disease contained. The Franklin County facility, for example, has hundreds of deer spread over a large area. Only 40 or so are located within the separate shooting preserve, however, he said.
“We don’t have any reason to suspect that the deer in the other parts f the facility have been exposed to chronic wasting disease,” Wolfgang said.
