Heres what they say so far!
Response to new cases of Pennsylvania deer with chronic wasting disease pending
By Marcus Schneck |
[email protected]
on March 04, 2013 at 4:15 PM, updated March 04, 2013 at 4:25 PM
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State agencies provided a bit more detail about three new Pennsylvania cases of deer with chronic wasting disease, but little in the way of the actions they will take in response to those cases, at a press conference Monday afternoon.
View full sizeA total of 2,089 samples were collected from hunter-killed deer in the disease management area designated last fall by the Pennsylvania Game Commission across portions of Adams and York counties.DAN GLEITER, The Patriot-News
The three new confirmed cases of CWD – all in free-ranging deer – were detected in an adult buck in Frankstown Township, Blair County; an adult doe in Freedom Township, Blair County; and a year-and-a-half-old buck in South Woodbury Township, Bedford County, according to Brad Meyers, southcentral regional director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
The hunters who harvested those deer did not notice anything usual about them, he said, noting, "Our officers asked them if these deer appeared sick or were acting strangely, and there was no evidence of that."
CWD is an always fatal brain disease among white-tailed deer and other cervids, like elk and moose.
Although it does not recommend that anyone eat venison from a deer confirmed to be infected with CWD, the Centers for Disease Control says, there is no evidence that the disease can be spread to other types of animals or to humans.
According to Calvin DuBrock, director of the commission's Bureau of Wildlife Management, all test results on samples taken from hunter-killed deer in the most recent hunting seasons in that area of southcentral Pennsylvania have been received, and only those three came back as confirmed for CWD.
In addition, results have come back as negative on all 2,089 deer sampled from within the 400-square-mile disease management area in Adams and York counties that the commission established last fall after Pennsylvania's first case of CWD was confirmed in a captive herd of deer.
Priority was placed on samples from the DMA and then samples from the area of Bedford and Blair counties because of their proximity to a spreading area of CWD in Maryland, about 10 miles south of the Mason-Dixon line with Bedford County.
Other results, from more than a thousand additional samples taken from hunter-killed and road-killed deer farther north in the state, have not yet been received, said DuBrock.
"We're expecting results over the next several weeks," he explained.
That timeframe also applies to the schedule the commission, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and other partners on the state's CWD Response Task Force expect to follow in setting the state's response to the three new cases of CWD.
"We're going to increase the testing of free-ranging deer in that area" through additional sampling of road-killed deer, deer killed for crop damage and recovery of deer reported as appearing sick, said DuBrock.
However, the full, official response that will be detailed in an executive order by the commission has not yet been determined.
"We're going to have to lay that out in the coming months," he said. "It will be spelled out in the executive order in the days ahead. There needs to be a lot more discussion within our agencies and within the task force."
"At the extreme end is what we did in Adams County this past year," plus anything else the task force determines to be necessary, he said.
However, he cautioned, "can we continue to spend $300,000-500,000 in each disease management area? It was pretty expensive."
The impact on deer farms within the three new areas of concern also remains up in the air, according to Craig Schultz, director of the Bureau of Animal Health within the department of agriculture.
"We've already started work on determining the coordinates for all facilities" in the affected area, and will be working with the Game Commission to determine the best course of additional action, he said.
"Once we have those results (from tests on all samples collected from hunter-deer killed), I think we'll have a better idea moving forward," he explained.
DuBrock said a public meeting, similar to meetings held last fall in Adams and York counties, has been tentatively scheduled for somewhere in Bedford or Blair County.
And a little more!
PGC press conference today identified the 3 free-ranging CWD positive deer as an adult buck, an adult doe and a yearling buck. The adult buck and doe were found in Blair Co., the yearling buck in Bedford Co.
Closest distance to known existing free ranging CWD positive deer in Maryland, approx. 20 miles, approx. 50 miles from CWD positive captive deer in Pennsylvania.
CWD task force will be deciding what regulatory changes will be implemented as part of the management plan after the remaining samples are tested, although they don't anticipate any further positives being found.
