# Why is bait still legal?



## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Tom, thanks for e-mailing me this story. This one line stands out..."Langenberg said experts evaluating Michigans efforts to restrict baiting and feeding to decrease TB transmission have said that too little was done". The rest is below...
Outdoors: Separating fact from fiction in chronic wasting disease

Experts weigh in on the crisis and its effects in Wisconsin
By Kevin Naze
Press-Gazette correspondent

Chronic wasting disease was first discovered in a captive deer herd in Colorado 35 years ago.

So why is it there still seem to be more questions than answers today?

Chronic wasting disease belongs to a group of fatal neurodegenerative diseases known as transmissible spongiform encepholopathies, or prion diseases. CWD has an unknown origin, a long incubation period and is very persistent.

In Wisconsin, three positive tests for CWD came from deer shot in the Mount Horeb area last November. Seventy-nine tests from that area came back negative, as did more than 350 tests from deer taken at five other locations around the state.

Since then, 10 samples (of 357 available) of a recent 500-deer surveillance-area shoot have come back positive for CWD.

There is strong evidence to suggest that the abnormally shaped prions are responsible for the disease. Researchers say prions accumulate only in certain parts of infected animals: the brain, eyes, spinal cord, lymph nodes, tonsils and spleen.

In the past week, we sought advice from experts in Colorado, Wyoming, Wisconsin and Canada to separate some of the facts from the fiction, but still came up with plenty of unknowns.

Fact: There is no evidence that traditional agricultural animals are naturally susceptible to CWD


Experts say the alternative livestock industry (farm-raised deer and
elk) has plenty to fear, but the beef and dairy industry likely will be minimally affected.

Experiments have shown it is extremely difficult to infect cattle with CWD. Only a few became ill after receiving CWD pathogen injected into their brains, and cattle living in close contact with infected deer or ingesting infected deer brain in one study have not developed the disease in 4½ years.

Not everyone is so sure, however. Val Geist, professor emeritus of environmental science at The University of Calgary, Alberta, said it might only be a matter of time before cattle given oral dosages of CWD develop the disease.

Fiction:

People should be afraid to eat venison

There is no scientific evidence CWD can infect humans. And according to wildlife experts and public health officials, theres no evidence that the agent that causes the disease occurs in the meat, anyway.

Concern arose in the late 1990s when spontaneous Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease occurred in three young U.S. adults who had regularly eaten venison.

This led to speculation that CWD could be spread from deer or elk to humans. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed the clinical records and pathological studies of all three cases and found no link to CWD.

Geist said he would eat any venison from a healthy fat deer  even in a CWD-infected area  but not its organs. He would not use a saw but rather would debone the meat with a knife.

Unknown:

Whether mouthing of bones from carcasses of deer infected by CWD would cause the disease

Experts disagree on this. While Geist insists its very likely, Beth Williams, a veterinarian at the University of Wyoming, said that getting CWD from picking up bones is very speculative. Williams has been working with CWD since 1977.

Geist said infected game farm deer and elk are popular targets as CWD transmitters but other possibilities include diseased carcasses and bone meal or other additives from diseased animals in protein/mineral blocks.

Department of Natural Resources wildlife veterinarian Julie Langenberg said western-state experts feel that introduction of CWD into a new area is far more likely to result from the movement/contact with infected live animals than from contact with a transferred carcass or a food source.

Fact:

Other states are taking preventative measures to try to reduce the chance of CWD problems

The measures vary widely, from beginning or increasing disease testing of both farm-raised and wild deer and elk to not allowing imports of captive deer and elk from states where the disease has been found.

On Friday, New York officials began a ban on all imports of deer and elk. This week, Indiana officials issued an emergency rule to temporarily suspend deer, elk and other cervid imports pending a look at long-term options.

Fiction:

The DNR is using chronic wasting disease as an excuse to try to ban baiting and put limits on feeding

Langenberg said experts evaluating Michigans efforts to restrict baiting and feeding to decrease TB transmission have said that too little was done.

Though some legislators have drafted bills shooting for bans or limits on the practices and retired DNR deer researcher Keith McCaffery has gone on record as opposing both, the DNR doesnt hold the cards.

According to Mark Toso, president of the Wisconsin Deer Hunters Association, baiting and feeding supporters Trig Solberg  the Natural Resources Board chairman  and state Sen. Kevin Shibilski are preventing the DNR from effectively managing the herd.

You may want to ask (Soberg and Shibilski) why they are willing to put money and politics ahead of our deer herd in this time of crisis, Toso said.

Unknown:

Whether anything can be done to prevent the gradual spread of CWD now that it is here

Some experts recommend culling sickly animals and banning baiting and feeding statewide while depopulating infected areas, closing captive cervid facilities and prohibiting translocating of live and dead animals from infected areas.

In addition, some say removing carcasses, bones and entrails from land in infected areas should be done.

One fear is that CWD has been able to sustain itself in Colorado even in areas where mule deer density is less than six animals per square mile.

How the disease will behave among whitetails of much higher density remains to be seen, but the prognosis is far from good, McCaffery said.


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## sadocf1 (Mar 10, 2002)

Deer baiting is legal because most deer hunters bait, it is a multi-million dollar business both here and in Wisconsin, so to ban it has political implications- " A BAN ON BAITING WOULD CLOSE 80%OF THE FEED MILLS NORTH OF HIGHWAY 8''- LaCross Tribune
What we here in Michigan would be well advised to consider are some of the remarks coming from another country- Canada-
Val Geist, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Calgary, Alberta- just a paragraph- "Geist said infected game farm deer and elk are popular targets (IN THE TRANSMISSION OF CWD) BUT OTHER POSSIBILITIES INCLUDE DISEASED CARCASSES AND BONE MEAL OR OTHER ADDITIVES FROM DISEASED ANIMALS IN PROTEIN MINERAL BLOCKS. I WOULD ADD TO THAT PELLETED FEEDS THAT CONTAIN ANIMAL PROTEIN.
These are very real ways that CWD can be spread. NO BULL.!!
Lets not put out any products for our deer that contain bone meal or animal protein- read the label !!
One might ask why none of our eminent wildlife disease experts in the United States have considered that this might be a possible means of transmitting CWD.
Why have they lifted their collective skirts to *****foot daintily around the possibility that sheep scrapie crossed the species barrier to cause CWD, OR TO CONSIDER CONTAMINATED FEED AS A POSSIBLE MODE OF INFECTION ???
POLITICS is one answer-but there may well be a more convincing reason.
When Opra announced on TV that she would eat no more hamburger she was sued by a Texas cattleman. As a result of this spectacle, many states passed Product Disparagement Laws


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## Pinefarm (Sep 19, 2000)

Deer hunting in general and the tourism dollars involved are much bigger than the county co-op. If we let this CWD slip in while leaving our policies at status quo, then heads should roll because nothing else will matter.


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