Sat. Oct. 20th, DNR Fisheries building, Fitchburg. The fourth meting of the CWD Stakeholders Advisory Group saw 4 presentations. The first was a review of research on deer dispersal and home ranges of deer in the CWD endemic core area. Seth Magle shared the work of the UW's Nancy Mathew's team. The group captured and monitored 114 deer for this study. 41 fawns, 12 yearlings, 56 adults and 6 deer of unknowns age or sex (he could not explain how 6 deer were unidentified) Tonsil biopsies were done and no deer showed detectable signs of infection of CWD but their tests were not as rigorous as postmortem brain biopsies. They monitored these deer weekly for 4 years and identified 19 social/family groups. The deer were located both day and night during all times of the year.
During this research, 65 of the original 114 deer died from a variety of causes. 3 were killed by cars, 6 mistakenly shot by sharpshooters, 8 were killed by coyotes, 35 hunter harvested and the remainder of unknown causes. All deer were sampled for CWD. 8 positives were found (roughly 12%).
During the study, the group created plots depicting the travel routs and home ranges of all the deer and since these deer were from 19 different family/social groups they assumed those deer had the same range. There findings showed females, both yearling and adult had very small home ranges on average of .25 square miles or 160 acres. Males had a larger home range with both adults and yearlings being .58 Square miles or 370 acres.
The study also showed that some deer will expand their range briefly only to return to their home range. around 30% of females would make exploratory trips of 7-8 miles lasting upwards of 5 days compared to around 50% of males making similar trips. The difference between the males and the females is that Yearling males may not return to their home range as they are kicked out of family groups to prevent inbreeding. It is these yearling males that establish new home ranges which explains bachelor groups of summer males.
There research is ongoing but some of the results shared so far were that deer have very small home ranges and that CWD is not spreading within family groups and they are not seeing disease clustering even when a known member of a family/social group has CWD. Constant social interaction such as grooming, feeding, bedding show no evidence of rapid transmission or clustering of the disease. Secondly, the only large scale movement across the landscape are due to yearling male dispersal. Finally, they left us with such questions as Are yearling males the primary source of the movement of CWD and are these males infected prior to dispersing or do they become infected after leaving their original home ranges???
The second presentation was from Paul Shelton, Forest Wildlife Program Manager, Illinois Department of Natural Resources and was titled "What is being done in Illinois? Paul's talk focused on the Illinois DNR's handling of CWD and admits that the Eastern DEZ most likely started in Illinois and not WI as the core area is just South of the WI border. The landscape in the Illinois endemic area is very different than the Western WI DEZ in that it is mostly prairie/ag and grasslands and subdivisions with woodlots only following river bottoms. The stats he used were 75%-94% crop/grasslands and 2%-9% forest. This is a very different picture than the Western DEZ in WI. He also mentioned that sharp shooting was widely used more so than hunter harvest due to the high population areas. Illinois has adopted a 2 prong approach to CWD, that being 1. Surveillance/monitoring and 2. Management to prevent the spread.
He shared that even though 75 percent of the deer tested across the state were hunter harvested that less than half of the positives came from hunters and that about 60% of all positives came from sharpshooters as sharpshooters were able to hunt the highest infected core areas that hunters could not. Trained sharpshooters would work 4 days per week in an area from Mid January until the end of March. All deer removed were tested and those that tested negative were donated to food pantries. The numbers of infected deer is rather low compared to WI with only 42 positives in 2006. The highest number of positives in a single year was 51 and that is since they began testing in 2002. Illinois is focusing a lot of effort in their sharpshooter program. WI has ended it's sharpshooter program, listing lack of funding as the reason. It has also ended the food pantry donation for the same reason.
One interesting point Paul made was that it cost Illinois about $12 per deer to test for CWD. In WI, the cost is around $90. This is due in part to the fact that collection of samples is not done by Illinois DNR but rather hunters and meat processors. Paul left us with these closing points. Illinois' plan is to maintain a consistent management strategy (sharpshooters) for a 5 year period and then evaluate the results. They are 4 years into this plan. They will focus on lowering deer densities statewide. He does not see the Illinois and Eastern WI CWD outbreaks as two separate or discrete events but rather one core area near the states borders and says that if one state is not successful is it's CWD plan, then the other state will also fail. Lastly, he stated that controlling this disease is a long term commitment.
The third presentation was made by one of our own panel members. Tom Givnish, Henry Allen Gleason Professor of Botany, University of Wisconsin - Madison. His talk was titled "Lessons learned from Managing Foot & Mouth in the UK" Tom is a non-hunter and was selected for the panel because of that. It was thought that getting input from the non-hunting community would give us more diverse ideas. Tom's talk focused on how the UK government was able to stamp out an outbreak of foot and mouth disease by drawing a circle around the core area and killing every cow, sheep, pig, horse and any other livestock susceptible to F&M disease within to stop the spread. In the end, tens of millions of animals were killed and burned and the disease was stopped only to reoccur as a separate incidence. His point was that killing, all the deer in both the Western and Eastern DEZ and HRZ was needed to stop CWD as quickly as possible. Along with killing all the deer, he suggested that all new deer inhabiting the area would have to be killed and this process would need to go on for at least a decade at which point, deer would be re-introduced to the area. He feels anything less than this strategy are really only half measures that will result in many more deer being killed over a longer period of time and at greater expense than to strike quickly and severely.
The last presentation of the day was from Julie Langenberg, Senior Veterinarian, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Her's was titled "A review of Wisconsin’s approach to managing CWD thus far" Julie listed the agency's efforts to date and discussed the many thing learned since the discovery in 2002. She also listed the shortcomings of the agency in dealing with hunters and landowners. The very unpopular idea of total eradication of all deer is now viewed as a mistake by the DNR and they have softened that stance to 5 deer per square mile but she assures that it is not due to pressures from the public but rather that the agency now feels that the disease can be stamped out through lowering the density to what essential amounts to 1/3 of a deer per 40 acres.
The DNR also plans to stand fast with the EAB program and feels it is a very valuable tool to get hunters to shoot more does. She also states that the sharpshooter program was very successful albeit very unpopular but she did show that sharpshooters were on average shooting 17% of the infected deer to the 1% that hunters were killing. she pondered as to what the infection rate would look like now if the DNR had done nothing over these last 5 years but failed to call their program a success. She mentioned that since 2002 that of the 600 deer and elk farms in WI that only 7 have been found to have had CWD. 99% of the farms are clean and being monitored regularly. She spent the rest of her time sharing the strategies use to increase hunter harvest and again stated that there is a threshold to the number of deer a hunter will take for personal use. The food pantry program is seen as important in increasing that threshold. She ended with stating that the DNR is doing more outreach and liaison work with the public and that more is needed.
The remainder of the day was spent formulating a set of working assumptions that the group has gathered since the beginning of our meetings so that we can all be in agreement as to the risks and threat levels based on differing levels of rigor in fighting CWD statewide. It was at this point that I asked the question about the statewide comment. I noted that I was under the impression that our work was to deal with CWD in the endemic area since the rest of the state was already free of CWD. I was informed that the recommendations of our panel and the work we are doing is on a state wide scale. I had suspected this all along and this was confirmed. As we discuss issues like crossbows, feeding/baiting. season structure, testing. It is on a state wide level for the next five years.
We are now finished with presentations and information gathering and will now proceed to discuss the strategies and the recommendations that we will forward onto the Secretary of the DNR. The next meeting is Nov. 10th.
