[WAR/ECON/GVT/HLTH] Mad Elk Disease spreads across N America

[Maher]

This problem will virtually destroy the idea of living off the land in hard times. Didn't this deliberate poisoning of our Elk herds begin in Colorado when some experimental elk from the university ACCIDENTALLY? escaped into the wild?

<center><b>Sunday, 7 April, 2002, 23:17 GMT 00:17 UK
<font color="red" size="4">Mad Elk Disease spreads across N America</font>

<img src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/36868000/jpg/_36868196_elk300ap.jpg">
<font size="-2">There is no live test for the disease</font>

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1916000/1916182.stm" target="web">BBC News Link</a>

Ania Lichtarowicz
BBC science reporter</b></center>

A form of Mad Cow Disease, which effects Elk and Deer is spreading westwards across North America and Canada.

Officials have reported cases in captive herds, which will now have to be culled.

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), or as it is more commonly known, Mad Elk Disease, has been found before in wild deer as well as wild and captive elk. There are also reports of the first case of the disease in mules.

Cases of Mad Elk Disease have been found for the first time on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, indicating that CWD had crossed the US continental divide.

The first case of the disease has also been reported on a ranch in the western Canadian province of Alberta.

<b>Economic impact</b>

CWD is similar to BSE in cattle and scrapie in sheep - fatal conditions caused by mutated proteins called prions in the brain.

The disease could have a significant economic impact - deer are bred for venison and elk are also farmed for their massive velvet-covered antlers, which are exported to Asia.

Along with deer, elk are also part of the multimillion dollar hunting industry in the US which is now being threatened by CWD.

As there is no live test for the disease, animals in the same herds will be slaughtered, and wild animals living close by will also be culled.

They will then be tested to try and determine how far CWD has spread.

<i>Fair use principals apply!</i>

[Kasota]

This has been in our local papers a bit. (Tiny bit...but at least it's there...)

A recent newspaper article said the Minnesota DNR was 'developing a plan' to keep it from spreading from Wisconsin to Minnesota. Yeah, right. What are they going to do? Put up check points for the deer crossing from Wisconsin to MN?

It's only a matter of time before it makes it's way to MN, if it isn't here already......

[phoenix7of7]

Though the subject matter here is wildlife; we may have to do what we were prepared to do last year - if our govt had reacted to H&M disease here the way the idiot british govt did over there.

There was a time when I'd have trusted the govt authorities to act with intelligence and common sense to a problem such as this. NO MORE. Today, as far as I'm concerned - they almost always act out of a hidden agenda that is detrimental to "the people".

If there is a mass slaughter of wildlife - it will not be to contain a disease. It will be to further hinder our ability to feed ourselves. And to further hinder our passing on to a younger generation the skills necessary to live in the wilds.

[Dennis Olson]

What I wanna know is.... this "disease" has never been seen before, in the hundreds of years that America has been settled. But suddenly, it appears out of the blue, and seems to be an epidemic in our antlered wildlife.

WHERE did this disease come from? WHY is it only appearing now? WTF is going on...?

[phoenix7of7]

Or .... perhaps it isn't really anything to be concerned about?

Livestock and wildlife drop dead for no apparent reason all the time.

Perhaps we're just LOOKING for it nowadays.

And perhaps the apparent link between eating the meat and developing the disease - 10 to 20 years later - is just 'apparent'.

Sadly; our best bet for not having a govt mandated mass slaughter - is simply because of the huge revenue the hunting states get off of hunting licenses.

[dreamseeer]

Dennis,

Think of it like in the show "The Pretender"......they have genius people creating models and computer models of endtimes scenerios so it would stand to reason that the also use this same MO to play out how it would be if one wanted to eliminate people.....they have literally left no stone unturned...thought of everything and have had years + a wealth of brains + technology to develop a complete wipe out of people now matter what their skills or survival abilities.....

If we don't have a reservation in one of those underground bunkers we can just kiss our sweet bippy goodbye.

[Maher]

Dennis: The first time I read anything about this disease was when researchers at the University of Colorado admitted that some of their experimental elk had escaped into the Colorado wilds and had infected the local populations.

I was madder than H-E-double toothpicks at the time and I still am. It almost seems that our friends over in Colorado infected their elk herds intentionally.

[Troke]

You know, back about 1950, in the No. Lake States they had some sort of problem like this, the deer/moose etc going mad and dying. And then it went away.

One of the things, we got a deer herd in some parts like nobody has ever seen. You get large populations of anything (including people) and bad things can happen.

But this sounds pretty scary. They have been shooting deer in Wis and I understand have found some infection.

[Troke]

http://www.startribune.com/stories/531/2213881.html

From the Wisconsin thread:

(SNIP).....In February, wildlife officials announced three deer killed by hunters north of Mount Horeb last fall tested positive for the disease, the first time it was discovered east of the Mississippi...(UNSNIP)

It looks as if it is amongst us.

[Maher]

<b><font color="red" size="4">Lions may be helping in CWD control efforts</font>

By Theo Stein
Denver Post Environment Writer

<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E405864,00.html" target="web">Denver Post News Link</a>

Sunday, February 17, 2002 - NEAR GREYROCK MOUNTAIN</b> - With a hiss and a show of teeth, the tawny lioness scratched her way further up a slender ponderosa pine.

<img src="http://www.denverpost.com/media/paper36/February2002/0217lionbig.jpg" align=left hspace="5"><b>This lioness, part of a study to see if the big cats can help stop the spread of chronic wasting disease, wears a radio collar.</b>

Quivering with exertion, she dislodged a shower of bark chips on the hounds, whose storm of protests rang through the stand of sun-dappled timber northwest of Fort Collins.

Two months ago, this young female became an unwitting participant in one of several new chronic wasting disease studies underway in Colorado when she was darted and fitted with a radio collar.

Now the lioness was trapped again to aid in research that could result in lion hunting being curtailed along the northern Front Range.

The study seeks to determine whether some of the state's estimated 2,000 to 3,000 big cats are slowing the spread of the fatal brain malady by picking off sick deer.

"If infected animals are being snuffed out fairly quickly by lions, especially near the edges of the epidemic, it would be useful to know that," said Mike Miller, the Colorado Division of Wildlife's chief wildlife veterinarian.

The agency's CWD control strategy aims to slow the spread of the neurologic malady by reducing deer numbers with a combination of hunter harvest and culling. But it's expensive.

The DOW appropriated $300,000 to meet the target of more than 5,000 deer removed from just part of the five-county epidemic area.

In the area west of Fort Collins, up to 15 percent of the mule deer and 1 percent of elk are afflicted by the disease, which makes animals slobber, wobble and waste away as it progresses.

Mountain lions kill about a deer a week, more often if they've got cubs. So a healthy population of cats living in and around the endemic area could be acting as a natural, and cheap, brake on CWD's spread.

But are they? CSU graduate student Caroline Krumm intends to find out.

"There haven't been a lot of studies done on mountain lion prey selection," said Krumm, whose work is funded by the wildlife agency. "But we know a lot about infection rates in this area and we can test the kill for CWD. So we should know if lions are killing just any deer that comes along, or selecting for the sick ones."

Of course, that's easier said than done.

Stealthy predators that hunt by night, mountain lions hide their kills under dirt and brush and return to feed for several days. So Krumm will track a handful of cats outfitted with special radio collars that contain global positioning units, focusing on places where they linger.

The collars record a lion's coordinates every two hours from dusk to dawn, then broadcast the data every other day to Krumm, who has to scramble to a high point to receive the data.

She then has to find the kill in time to obtain fresh brain or tonsil samples that can be tested for CWD.

Lions aren't hunted hard west of Fort Collins. Only two of an allowable 10 were taken during the 2000 hunt in an area stretching from the Poudre River north to the Wyoming border. But as the 15,000-square-mile endemic area grows, the agency may consider further restrictions on the lion season to keep older, experienced and presumably better hunters in the lion population, Miller said.

To develop meaningful results during the three-year study, Krumm will need about 100 lion-killed deer. Problems with her receiver have limited her to two kills, both adult does taken by the discomfited lioness in the tree.

Krumm also needs more collared lions, which was the goal recently when she set out with Laramie houndsman Duggins Wroe and a team of biologists and veterinarians across a snowy ranch just south of Livermore.

As the team bounced and spun down a four-wheel-drive road into the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, Wroe and University of Wyoming biologist Hall Sawyer stopped once or twice in search of fresh lion tracks to set the dogs on.

The sparsely populated foothills west of Fort Collins are ideal lion habitat, with lots of browse for deer and elk, and plenty of ambush zones for opportunistic lions. Wroe and Sawyer quickly found the tracks of a big male, or tom. But toms range more widely than lionesses and don't kill as often, so it's tougher to find the remains of their prey, Krumm said. So they left the tom alone.

The next set of tracks, just a couple hundred yards up the road, looked more promising.

"She might be the one we've seen with kittens," said Wroe as he sprang from his truck and hauled three eager dogs over to the track.

"Get the cat, Maddie!" Wroe said. "Get the cat, Jed!" The words were hardly out of his mouth when Maddie, a cross between a red tick and a Walker hound, rocketed up a snowy ridge in full throat with Jed and a third hound, Katy, baying on her heels.

"Now comes the fun part," Wroe said.

After getting directions from a spotter on a nearby mountain, the team drove another half-mile down the trail, which dipped and bucked across gullies and through streams, before setting off up a dark draw on foot and loaded with gear.

Two ridges and a sweaty hour later, a happy Jed came trotting up to the team as it moved down into a gully, ready to escort them to the quarry.

They quickly found Maddie and Katy, barking with renewed energy at their quarry. The lioness flattened her rounded ears against her head and began to chew distractedly on a green-tufted twig sticking in her face, her claws flashing in and out of her oversized paws.

Krumm quickly realized there was a problem: This was the same cat she collared two months ago.

"She's looking good," Krumm said as she and veterinarian Lisa Wolfe unloaded a special dart pistol and removed the syringe. "I'm glad to see she's easy to tree, so we can get that collar off her this spring."

After watching the lioness for a few minutes, the team packed out. But Krumm would be back on top of a nearby ridge with her telemetry gear the next morning, waiting for more data from the collar.

"I sure hope she's worked up an appetite," Krumm said.

<center><img src="http://www.denverpost.com/media/paper36/February2002/0217cwd.gif"></center>

<i>Fair use principals apply!</i>

[Maher]

<b><font color="red" size="4">Elk kill begins at ill-fated ranch</font>

<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E388325,00.html" target="web">Denver Post News Link</a>

330 CWD-exposed animals to be euthanized

By Theo Stein
Denver Post Environment Writer

Friday, February 08, 2002 - DEL NORTE</b> - <u>State and federal officials today begin the grim task of killing the first of 330 elk exposed to chronic wasting disease at a picturesque ranch next to the Rio Grande.</u>

"This whole piece of land is centered around this animal, and now I'm losing the centerpiece," said Rich Forrest, the frustrated owner of Rancho Anta Grande.

"But since there's no way of telling which ones are infected, they all have to be killed so we can control this disease."

<u>After cleaning up Rancho Anta Grande, the veterinary team will euthanize 1,200 more elk in northern Colorado over the next two months.</u>

"I guess I'm kind of the spear point of a cleanup we all agree has to happen," Forrest said.

<b>Over the next week, veterinarians will euthanize each animal by administering first a tranquilizer and then a fatal dose of barbiturates. After the heads are removed for later study, the carcasses will be turned to ash in a 36-foot-deep pit by a 2,500-degree blast of heat from a special incinerator.</b>

The soil in the pen where a CWD-positive elk was found at the ranch this summer also will be sterilized in the pit.

"It's not a happy moment to come down here to watch these elegant animals get killed," said Henry Kriegel, spokesman for the North American Elk Breeders Association. "You can see how people get so attached to them. They're so beautiful."

State veterinarian Wayne Cunningham said the operation at Forrest's ranch was "by far" the largest "depopulation" he's had to undertake.

"Our training is to save animals, not to put them down, so this is not easy for anybody," Cunningham said.

Forrest's ranch, which sits between the snow-capped peaks of the Rio Grande National Forest and the La Garita Mountains, has been under quarantine since Sept. 18, when a cow elk that died tested positive for CWD. But the cleanup has been delayed until this month, when <u>the U.S. Department of Agriculture finally released $12.5 million in national assistance to help reimburse ranchers in Colorado and other states for their CWD losses.</u>

In the meantime, Forrest has spent $70,000 to maintain his elk herd.

The refrigerated heads of Forrest's elk may eventually provide researchers with clues to help them crack the secrets of the brain-wasting disease they believe is caused by a mysterious, mutant protein called a prion.

But Forrest, a geologist and former research scientist, says CWD experts are wrong to focus on the elusive prion. He says there's a much more ordinary cause for the disease that makes deer and elk slobber, wobble and lose weight until they waste away - maybe a bacteria or a virus.

So he and his wife, Jan Elsworth, have created The CWD Foundation to encourage research into the malady, which is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy like sheep scrapie and mad-cow disease.

<b>Unlike mad-cow disease, there's no evidence yet that CWD can infect humans.</b>

As seed money, the Forrests intend to use whatever is left over from about $500,000 in assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the loss of his animals. But after paying back investors and paying off debts, he said there won't be much left.

And he's still waiting to hear whether the USDA will let him restock the parts of his ranch where the sick cow elk was never held.

"It's kind of an idyllic place," Forrest said of his ranch, one of only two remaining large blocks of land in a stretch of valley already dotted with subdivisions.

"But if I can't make the mortgage anymore, I'll have to find something to do with the land."

<i>Fair use principals apply!</i>

And so, it begins!

[nitetrax]

This is extremely frightening, but it's not just happening to wildlife. I saw on the news that the Lobster industry is in deep trouble because of lobster die off.
I found this story:
http://www.msnbc.com/local/ctpost/m167386.asp

But it seems I read or saw a story last week about the lobster idustry in CT -- and a massive die off last month.
I can't seem to find it anywhere on the net.

Weird.

Anyway, I know some of you don't put much faith in Boone's drawings, but this sure makes me think of this picture:
http://home.isoa.net/~nitetrax/january31.htm

[Maher]

Discovery

<u>"Chronic wasting disease" was first recognized by biologists in the 1960s as a disease syndrome of captive deer held in wildlife research facilities in Ft. Collins, CO</u>, but was not recognized as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy until the late 1970s. <u>This disease was subsequently recognized in captive deer, and later in captive elk, from wildlife research facilities near Ft. Collins, Kremmling, and Meeker, CO and Wheatland, WY, as well as at in least two zoological collections.</u> More recently, CWD has been diagnosed in privately-owned elk residing in game ranches in a few western states and provinces. Although CWD was first diagnosed in captive research cervids, the original source (or sources) of CWD in either captive cervids or free-ranging cervids is unknown; whether CWD in research animals really preceded CWD in the wild, or vice versa, is equally uncertain.

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/hunting/wasting.html

[Maher]

<b><font color="red" size="3">The Truth About Chronic Wasting Disease</font>
Jerry Nelson, Deer and Elk Section Manager</b>

<a href="http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/wlm/game/hunter/gametrails/chronic_wasting.htm" target="web">WDWF Website Link</a>

<img src="http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/wlm/game/hunter/gametrails/graphics/rory_calhoun.jpg" align=right hspace="5" border="2">If you’ve read an outdoor magazine recently or watched the news on TV, you’ve probably been inundated with sensationalized reports of diseases in both domestic livestock and wild animals. One of the maladies that may have been discussed is a disease of the central nervous system found in deer and elk called chronic wasting disease.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). Other TSE’s currently known to science include scrapie in domestic sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle, kuru in humans, and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans.

CWD was first observed in captive mule deer at a research facility in Ft. Collins Colorado in the late 1960s. Scientists in Wyoming determined the disease was a TSE in 1978. Currently, CWD is found in wild herds of deer and elk in north-central Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. It’s also been found in captive elk on a few game farms in the west. Most recently, two cases of CWD have been confirmed in wild mule deer in Saskatchewan. Animals affected by the disease will exhibit excessive weight loss, appear lethargic with their heads down and ears drooping, salivate excessively, drink water more than usual, spend less time with other animals in the herd or pen, and eventually die. There are a variety of other diseases that may cause one or more of these symptoms. Observing a sick deer doesn’t provide conclusive evidence of CWD, or any other disease for that matter. Laboratory tests are necessary to determine the type of disease a deer might have.

The agent that causes CWD is not fully understood, however scientists are confident that the cause is not a virus or bacterium. The mode of transmission is another mystery that hasn’t been completely unraveled. It is suspected that animal-to-animal contact is one form of transmission. Doe-to-fawn transmission may be possible as well, but is less likely. The origin of the disease is also unknown. One theory suggests that the disease developed spontaneously on it’s own, similar to a genetic mutation. Another theory is that a disease like scrapie in domestic sheep was able to cross the species barrier and infect deer.

Clues to the disease are in the proteins that occur in mammal nerve cells. Normal proteins are found on the membranes of nerve cells and they seem to play a role in the transfer of impulses between nerve cells. If the shape of the protein is altered in a certain way, it becomes a proteinaceous infectious particle or prion (PREE-ON). Scientists don’t fully understand why proteins reconfigure into prions. One characteristic for all TSE’s is that the brain of the afflicted animal contains irregular prions, and these abnormal prions have the ability to make other proteins change shape simply by coming in contact with them. Although they are made up of approximately 250 amino acids, prions contain no nucleic acid such as DNA or RNA. Prions cause neighbor proteins to “mutate”, despite the fact that they lack the genetic material that we normally associate with a mutation. The result is a slow, degenerative, chain reaction in adjacent proteins changing to prions and ultimately causing sponge-like holes in the brain tissue. As the lesions spread, brain function deteriorates, and the animal dies. CWD is always fatal.

There is no scientific evidence at this time that CWD can be transmitted from deer or elk to humans. Scrapie is a TSE that has been recognized in domestic sheep since the 1700s. Scrapie has never had an impact on the humans that worked with or ate domestic sheep. There is evidence to suggest that a variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease that is affecting people in Great Britain may have come from cattle infected with BSE. This is quite an unusual development, because TSE’s were believed to be species specific. Because proteins are similar in similar types of animals, it makes sense that two closely related species would be more likely to trade prions that cause disease. In experiments, a small percentage of healthy elk have come down with the disease when they were held in the same pen with mule deer that had CWD. Less closely related animals like pronghorn, bighorn sheep and mouflon sheep exposed to the same conditions did not contract the disease. Research by the National Institute of Health is being conducted to determine if prions from one species can alter proteins from another species in a test tube. There is still a lot we don’t know about inter-species transfer of these types of diseases.

Although CWD has never been documented in Washington, hunters should still exercise caution when hunting deer and elk. Don’t harvest an animal that appears sick or is behaving strangely. Wear rubber gloves while field dressing the animal. Don’t eat the brain, spinal cord, eyes, or spleen.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has been conducting targeted surveillance sampling for CWD since 1995. When deer and elk show symptoms similar to CWD, samples are collected by Department staff and sent to a laboratory in Wyoming to be tested. Last year WDFW expanded CWD testing to include locker checks of some meat processors that handled wild game. To date, all of the samples tested from Washington deer and elk have been negative for CWD. One of the difficulties in testing for CWD is that no test currently exists that can be conducted on live animals. Only brain stem samples from dead animals can be tested. Therefore the two best sources for test subjects come from hunter-harvested deer and elk and road-kills. WDFW will substantially increase sampling efforts this hunting season in an attempt to achieve statewide coverage. At this time we have no reason to believe that CWD occurs in Washington. With the cooperation of hunters, the expanded testing effort will provide an increased level of confidence that Washington deer and elk are CWD free. Biologists will be collecting samples from hunters during the season. If you are contacted please cooperate in this important effort.

<i>Fair use principals apply!</i>

[magnetic1]

I read about this on the WI DNR website early last year. They knew it was in Wi then.

I goofed & didn't save it then. Darn!!!! Bet if I look now, it's gone.
However, after I post this, I'm off to check.

My personal opinion is that somehow they have to admit it now & that makes the problem soooo much bigger than they are saying.

Back to my Dr. bro that was telling me about the fella who died out by VA from this disease. The source was finally tracked to a squirrel.

So, Dennis, how big are the archives??

[ainitfunny]

About ten years ago when i was doing a great deal of first hand research on the Mad Cow story, I contacted the head of the Dept. of Agriculture in WA state by phone. We had a long discussion about it and he assured me that to his knowledge there was no mad cow disease in Washington cattle, but HE MENTIONED CWD as being virtually the same disease but occurring in wild deer and elk, and said that we DID have CWD in those animals! At the time I was all concerned about Mad Cow and did not give much importance to the presence of CWD in deer and elk. Now I understand they deny the presence of this disease here.

[ohiowoodsman]

Field & stream had a cover story on this about a year or so ago, including a story about a hunter who contracted CDJ and died because of eating a contaminated deer. I think as long as they allow domestic herds of deer and elk you're going to have trouble these species are just not suitable for confinment and if the domestic heards get sick it jumps to the wild herds.

[homecanner1]

Somebody better warn the authorities and their Colorado Cougar Cleanse about the fate of the Lions back over in the British Zoo system... recalled reading this on Rense, its still in his archives.

Anyone else who resided in Britain, is presumed to have also consumed meat while there and thus can no longer donate blood in US/Canada. These wasting diseases revealing themselves over here should have set alarm bells ringing a long time ago...

11-21-00

LONDON - A lion at a zoo in the west of England was suffering from the feline version of "mad cow disease" when it was put down earlier this year...."

"...Results of a postmortem showed the animal was suffering from feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE), the cat equivalent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the formal name for mad cow disease.

Officials at the British Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food in London were informed of the case after samples from the animal's brain were sent for laboratory tests.

But a ministry spokeswoman said the case was not felt to be a concern. "These animals don't go into the food chain," she said. "You are more at risk of getting mauled by a lion in a safari park than you are getting BSE from one."

The zoo's managing director, Mike Thomas, said staff had had no idea that the animal had the disease. "It was a very surprising piece of news for us," he said. "I would expect it would have had to come from Major eating part of a whole carcass, as it is the brain and spinal chord which carry the disease."

Although cases of FSE in big cats in Britain are not unprecedented, Major is only the third lion confirmed to have had the disease.

Official figures show a wide variety of exotic species have succumbed to mad cow disease-type illnesses since the first recorded death of a zoo animal from such a disease in June 1986. Most of the deaths have occurred among the species, with tigers, ocelot, puma and cheetah all falling victim. Isolated cases have also been reported among ruminants...."