16pt 12pxFrom the American Cervid Alliance Newsroom
"Spiderweb" CWD Quarantines Continue for Whitetail Farmers
Possible Protocol Relief in Future
AYR, NE- The number of quarantined deer farms has grown since this summer due to Chronic Wasting Disease being discovered on additional farms. Dozens of deer farms in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other eastern states have been impacted by trace-back policy derived from the Federal Program Standards and not the Federal CWD rule. Some states are using an automatic 60 month quarantine instead of an epidemiological investigation to determine the degree of exposure of trace-back and trace-forward herds. If a deer farm finds CWD, states can examine any farm they have done business within the previous sixty months and implement whole herd quarantines on those connected farms. This has caused a major disruption for farms in this region, especially at a time when they usually move breeding and trophy animals. The new trace-out policy practiced by some of these states, in using the USDA's CWD Program Standards document, is not based on current science and in essence is a "scorched earth policy" approach.
The USDA's Federal Rule addresses this issue and calls for epidemiological investigations for these cases. The Program Standards document, which accompanies the federal rule as optional additional guidelines, adds more stringent protocol. The program standards document dedicates over a dozen additional pages to these situations, which has been adopted by several state agencies word for word. American Cervid Alliance Moderator Eric Mohlman said this course of action was foreseen by many cervid leaders. "We fought hard to draw a hard line on the standards in our Standards Working Group last year because we knew some states would adopt these optional guidelines verbatim."
Other cervid leaders say the standards policy goes above and beyond the intent of the federal rule. Charly Seale, an ACA Councilman representing the Exotic Wildlife Association, said, "we (the ACA) knew this would happen and we warned the industry months ago. The federal rule has been adopted with control and a minimization of risk of the spread of CWD in mind. The program standards, on the other hand, are designed for eradication of the disease, which science has shown is impossible. Everyone in this industry should have seen this coming."
The American Cervid Alliance opened the discussion of amending the standards trace-forward and trace-back language from 60 months to 36 months in the USAHA Farmed Cervid Subcommittee at the 2014 conference. The negotiations for changing the Program Standards are ongoing and hopefully will provide reasonable change in the future. In addition, at the 2014 USDA Cervid Sector meeting in Washington DC, cervid leaders in attendance asked USDA's leadership to help relieve unnecessary quarantines.
"We have to do something," added Seale. "The CWD Federal Rule does provide the industry some protection in showing the farmed cervid critics we have a responsible program. The program standards, however, go above and beyond the rule and regulatory agencies that are adopting these as their state's policy are punishing the farmed cervid industry within that state."
The American Cervid Alliance will keep the farmed cervid industry up to date any changes as they occur.
"Spiderweb" CWD Quarantines Continue for Whitetail Farmers
Possible Protocol Relief in Future
AYR, NE- The number of quarantined deer farms has grown since this summer due to Chronic Wasting Disease being discovered on additional farms. Dozens of deer farms in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other eastern states have been impacted by trace-back policy derived from the Federal Program Standards and not the Federal CWD rule. Some states are using an automatic 60 month quarantine instead of an epidemiological investigation to determine the degree of exposure of trace-back and trace-forward herds. If a deer farm finds CWD, states can examine any farm they have done business within the previous sixty months and implement whole herd quarantines on those connected farms. This has caused a major disruption for farms in this region, especially at a time when they usually move breeding and trophy animals. The new trace-out policy practiced by some of these states, in using the USDA's CWD Program Standards document, is not based on current science and in essence is a "scorched earth policy" approach.
The USDA's Federal Rule addresses this issue and calls for epidemiological investigations for these cases. The Program Standards document, which accompanies the federal rule as optional additional guidelines, adds more stringent protocol. The program standards document dedicates over a dozen additional pages to these situations, which has been adopted by several state agencies word for word. American Cervid Alliance Moderator Eric Mohlman said this course of action was foreseen by many cervid leaders. "We fought hard to draw a hard line on the standards in our Standards Working Group last year because we knew some states would adopt these optional guidelines verbatim."
Other cervid leaders say the standards policy goes above and beyond the intent of the federal rule. Charly Seale, an ACA Councilman representing the Exotic Wildlife Association, said, "we (the ACA) knew this would happen and we warned the industry months ago. The federal rule has been adopted with control and a minimization of risk of the spread of CWD in mind. The program standards, on the other hand, are designed for eradication of the disease, which science has shown is impossible. Everyone in this industry should have seen this coming."
The American Cervid Alliance opened the discussion of amending the standards trace-forward and trace-back language from 60 months to 36 months in the USAHA Farmed Cervid Subcommittee at the 2014 conference. The negotiations for changing the Program Standards are ongoing and hopefully will provide reasonable change in the future. In addition, at the 2014 USDA Cervid Sector meeting in Washington DC, cervid leaders in attendance asked USDA's leadership to help relieve unnecessary quarantines.
"We have to do something," added Seale. "The CWD Federal Rule does provide the industry some protection in showing the farmed cervid critics we have a responsible program. The program standards, however, go above and beyond the rule and regulatory agencies that are adopting these as their state's policy are punishing the farmed cervid industry within that state."
The American Cervid Alliance will keep the farmed cervid industry up to date any changes as they occur.
