Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting CWD finally makes it to PA

Dead deer at deer farming site, determined to have died from CWD recently. There are approximately 1200 such "deer farms" in PA, with roughly 25,000 deer.

Agriculture Dept. here has control over deer farms, not our game commission, but the game commission has enacted their emergency plan to deal with CWD and has imposed restrictions on moving certain deer parts (brain, spine, lymph, etc) outside of a roughly 600 square mile area (mostly Adams and York counties).

Yup! I live in NH and it made our nightly newscast last night about bring deer or parts there of into NH from PA.....

The official skinny:

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1253813&mode=2

Here is the NYS DEC version.........

DEC ISSUES EMERGENCY REGULATION FOR CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE TO PROHIBIT IMPORTING CERTAIN ANIMAL PARTS
Action Taken to Protect New York�s Deer Population in Response to Pennsylvania Discovery

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued an emergency rulemaking that revises the state�s Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) regulations in response to a confirmed case of CWD in Pennsylvania, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens announced today. Effective immediately, the revision prohibits importing certain parts of white-tailed deer or American elk taken in the state of Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture confirmed the first case of CWD in Pennsylvania on October 11 at a deer farm in New Oxford (Adams County), PA. CWD is a contagious neurological disease affecting deer, elk and moose. It causes a characteristic spongy degeneration of the brain in infected animals resulting in emaciation, abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death. In response, DEC amended its CWD regulations to prohibit importing the following parts of deer or elk taken in Pennsylvania: brain, eyes, spinal cord, tonsils, intestinal tract, spleen or retropharyngeal lymph nodes.

�Hunters who take a deer or elk in Pennsylvania must now butcher the animal and remove the prohibited parts before entering New York State,� said DEC Commissioner Martens. �This action is necessary to protect New York�s populations of deer and moose. Most successful hunters already opt to butcher a deer and put the meat in a cooler before traveling back to New York.�

DEC�s ongoing extensive surveillance program, initiated in 2002, first confirmed CWD in New York State in 2005 and has not discovered any additional cases of CWD since that time. DEC recently revised its surveillance plan and efforts this year will concentrate on collecting tissues at taxidermists as well as deer processors.

It is not known exactly how CWD is transmitted. The infectious agent, a prion, may be passed from animal to animal through feces, urine or saliva. The minimal incubation period between infection and development of clinical disease appears to be about 16 months. The maximum incubation period is unknown, as is the point at which shedding of the CWD agent begins during the prolonged course of infection.

The movement of infected material is believed to be one of primary routes of transmission. This amendment to the CWD regulations prohibits importing those parts of a deer where the disease is most likely to be found. DEC advises hunters not to consume the meat of any animal that acts abnormal and to exercise precautions when butchering animals, such as using rubber or latex gloves. Also, DEC urges hunters to dispose of deer parts that will not be consumed in a municipal landfill.

Additional information about CWD can be found on DEC�s website at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7507.html and http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/33220.html. Information is also available on the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance's website at http://www.cwd-info.org/.


For reference, the parts of harvested deer or elk that hunters are allowed to bring into NY from PA (and other restricted states and provinces) include meat (without the backbone), cleaned hide and cape, antlers or cleaned skull plate with antlers attached, tanned hide and finished taxidermy mounts.

See www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/8325.html for a list of states and provinces from which whole deer, elk and moose carcasses may be brought into NY. All carcasses and parts of deer, elk or moose brought into NY must have a tag identifying the species of animal, the state, province, or country where the animal was taken and the name and address of the person who took the animal. Usually the tagging requirements of the state/province/territory of origin will contain this information.

Jeremy Hurst
Big Game Biologist




Note: To change your email address with NY Big Game, get a password reminder, or unsubscribe please visit http://lists.dec.state.ny.us/mailman/listinfo/nybiggame

You may also catch the latest updates on New York's fish and wildlife by subscribing to Field Notes, another free online e-mail list provided by the Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources. To learn more and subscribe, see www.dec.ny.gov/about/63801.html

IIRC, a CWD-positive deer (perhaps more than one?) was found near Syracuse a few years ago, probably also on another deer farming operation?

CWD has also been found in MD and WV, so it was "all around us", now it's here.

We'll have to bone ours out (if successful) for the rifle season. I hunted the early ML season last Sat, Mon & Tues. morning and didn't even see a doe! Saw a pile of bucks though, go figure. I was prepared to bone out last week anyway so it wouldn't have mattered.

Well, it gets "better".

On October 18th the Agriculture Dept. people were overseeing the destruction of the remaining deer where the dead deer tested positive for CWD and one deer escaped.

Now we have a captive deer from the same pen CWD was found at, loose among our wild deer. Best part, they never informed the public that the deer escaped.

Game Commission, on the other hand, did put out a notice about it escaping and will replace the doe tag of anyone shooting the escaped (ear tagged) deer and reporting it to them.

Ag Dept. came up with some lame-assed excuse about not wanting to panic the public, or upset landowners in the area by having people out looking to kill the escaped deer.



It has also come out that several deer from the CWD location in PA, were shipped to Indiana and possibly a few other states, in the past few years. Bear in mind the CWD incubation period can be up to five years in length.

I think one deer was killed a couple of years ago with CWD in either Fredrick or Warren county Va- both bordering WV

That is all the Pa. deer herd needs, with the game comm. out to exterminate it, now this..it looks like it is doomed..Probably the commissions next trick will be to bring in some wolves to make sure they destroy all the deer...

Man, that is horrible.

I was watching Bone Collector and there is another disease that is affecting whitetails up in Montana called EHD I think. They showed video of a buck suffering from it. A damn shame... I guess gnats bite an infected deer and are able to pass it along to other deer via by bite. They seem to always be near water for some reason.

Sad, sad. I hunt coyotes and I'm not to upset over mange, but affecting what I love to hunt/ eat is horrible to think about.

We've already had several areas in PA affected with EHD again this year. Almost an annual occurance now, when drought conditions enable the midges to multiply and become a problem.

First hard frost usually puts an end to the midges and therefore, EHD outbreaks. EHD cannot spread from deer to deer, like CWD does.

To the comment about the game commission trying to exterminate deer in PA: BS!

If anything, it is our good fortune that deer PA numbers have been reduced in many areas over the past 10 years, if CWD gets a toe hold here in wild deer?

Im with dubePA....thankfully the herd has slimmed down. They need to exteminate the deer in the deer farms and close them down. But that would be too sensible, and we are talking about PA afterall

Update: 21 PA deer farm locations now quarantined as of this week. And they cover a pretty broad area of PA. This has now expanded way beyond the two counties originally the focus of CWD in captive herds.

Trace back continues to account for locations that had some connection with the dead deer which tested positive for CWD in October, at the New Oxford operation.

Still no Dept. of AG statewide ban on letting deer move about from one farm to another, although our neighboring states (and others) have now banned importation of captive cervids from PA.

And they have yet to accomplish the erection of fencing at former deer farm locations with a connection to the dead deer, where the fences had been removed.

Rapidly turning into a major fustercluck, my opinion?

There is a public meeting this coming week in York. I might take a ride over and see what they have to say.

From the PGC press release on Nov 1:

Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Carl G. Roe today announced that the agency will hold a public meeting to answer questions regarding the 600-square-mile Disease Management Area (DMA) in Adams and York counties and the Executive Order as part of the agency�s ongoing efforts to monitor the wild deer population for chronic wasting disease (CWD).

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 8, at the York County Fairgrounds, Horticultural Hall, 334 Carlisle Avenue, York. Representatives of the Department of Agriculture will be on hand to answer questions related to the efforts to trace out and trace back other captive deer that may have come into contact with the infected deer.

Dale

Yep and there may be another public meeting to follow the one in York?

Game Commission is also sending out about 47,000 letters to those licensed hunters in the affected areas of York and Adams counties, to make sure everyone knows what is going on.

www.pgc.state.pa.us

Look for the CWD pic, click on that to get to their CWD info pages.

No one can fault them for taking this seriously.

I went to the CWD meeting in York tonight, it was good one. I'd estimate attendance at 250 or so. The Pa. Game Commission (PGC) and Pa. Dept of Ag (PDA) both had people there, big wig people like the Exec. Director of the PGC and a Deputy Secretary of PDA. They stated right up front that all questions would be answered and they did that. They gave a lot of background info on CWD, and then talked about what they have done so far. The meeting started at 7, they talked for about 50 minutes and when I left about 8:45, they were still answering questions but by that time, the questions were starting to repeat. Nobody got out hand.

There was one deer that died and following the PDA rules for deer farms, the owner had it tested. That one came up positive. They depopulated the herd and tested them (except for the doe that got away), one of them also tested positive but was showing no symptoms. They (PGC, PDA, and USDA Wildlife Services) are looking for the one that got away, it has a pink ear tag. Day and night, both with people and cameras.

They have traced all the deer movements between farms, both where they came from and where they went. All those farms (25 farms, 30 properties) are quarantined.

As to the area not being fenced, it's complicated. As I understand it, there is a fence but apparently there are spots where it is down. Putting up the fence is the landowners responsibility. PDA is operating under legal constraints regarding private property and can't just walk in and put up a fence. They talked about the deer being on one site then that one closed and the deer were moved. So I'd guess finances are a big part of it. About all they could say was "We want it up and are doing what we can".

They emphasized that there are NO known cases in wild deer, they will have check stations where they will collect hi risk material (brain, lymph glands etc) from deer killed in the Disease Management Area (DMA) during rifle season and test it. The hunter will get a report on whether his deer was infected. There is no evidence to suggest that CWD is transmissible to humans (unlike BSE) but the recommendation is to NOT eat meat from an infected deer.

One person asked about sick deer near Central High (a school in york), PGC and PDA did not know anything about it. They asked the gentleman to meet with them afterwards to provide more information. All night, there was no doublespeak or question dodging.

At least one, maybe 2 TV stations were there filming, I even got on TV while waiting my turn to ask a question.

I know I've put a lot in here, the short version is they are implementing their contain, control and monitor plan and they need to see what is found in rifle season.

One other note, deer feeding and urine based scents are now banned in the DMA.

If you have questions on what I posted, I'll be happy to try and answer them.

Dale

CWD killed off a deer farm in North West PA about 10 years ago. It's been there, and not pretty.

One thing that came out of the York meeting and also occured during the previous meeting Oct. 17 in Adams County, is that many still think the Game Commission controls captive deer and elk in PA.

Some of the negative comments reported in the papers and on TV, reflected that after both meetings: Guys running their yaps about PGC not knowing what it is doing, etc.

PGC IS NOT IN CHARGE OF CAPTIVE DEER IN PA, dammit!

Jurisdiction over captive deer and elk were taken away from PGC by the Legislature and handed over to PA Dept. of Agriculture at least 6 years ago, perhaps longer?

Why? Because the cervid farmers complained about PGC being "too hard" on them, with inspections and regulations. Jurisdiction over taxidermists was also transfered to AG, from PGC, for essentially the same reason.

PGC had a better handle on things when they had control and why wouldn't they - they're the ones with DEER biologists, for Christ's sake! AG deals with domestic livestock, not cervids.

Know for a fact that had CWD occured in PA under PGC's "watch", their plan would've called for an immediate halt to movement of captive deer and elk.

AG has been monkeying around with their trace back (where captive deer went/where they came from), for a month now. And have quarantined roughly 30 locations (out of approximately 1100 deer farms in PA), while all other deer farmers in PA are still free to buy/sell cervids pretty much at will. WTH is wrong with that picture?

Many hunters still do not comprehend that AG controls captive cervids/PGC only has control over wild cervids in PA and CANNOT interfere with how AG is handling CWD in captive deer, here.

I think Carl Roe said it was 2004 when the legislature made the switch. He also said that, at that time, the PGC was working on plans to require double fences on the deer farms, that was one of the reasons the farmers went to the legislature.

I think part of the response time issue is that PDA is a state agency, PGC is semi independent and can/will act more quickly.

You're right about the confusion, at the start of the meeting they laid out very specifically who had what authority and folks at the meeting STILL got it wrong.

What totally amazed me was the guy who admitted to keeping deer since the 90's WITHOUT being registered or inspected. I don't know what came of that but I'll bet he got a visit.

Dale