03/18/2009

By Elaine McMillion and Jessica Rhodes

ROMNEY, W.Va.- Chronic wasting disease, a fatal epidemic affecting white-tailed deer in northern West Virginia, is expected to last for another 40 to 50 years according to Rich Rogers, a wildlife biologist at the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources in Romney, W.Va.

West Virginia’s first case of chronic wasting disease (CWD), a neurological disease found in deer and elk, was confirmed in 2005 in central Hampshire County.

CWD is thought to be caused by infectious particles called prions that slowly attack the brain and cause the animals to become emaciated, display abnormal behavior and eventually die, according to the WVDNR.

“There are actually holes formed in the brain from the prion, which we believe is the infectious agent,” Rogers said. “When this prion shows up in affected animals it is 100 percent fatal.”

CWD was first recognized in Colorado in 1967. It has sincebeen found in portions of Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. Several years ago, states across the country started a road kill surveillance program to find out more about CWD.

“The probability of picking up a positive case in a road kill is higher than picking up just a random deer by shooting it,” Rogers said. “But it’s sort of like finding a needle in a hay stack.”

On September 2, 2005, the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia confirmed a road kill sample from the Slanesville area of Hampshire County.

Rogers said the WVDNR started an intense monitoring program to prevent the epidemic from spreading.

“When that test was confirmed, we knew we had a problem,” Rogers said. “This is no longer surveillance, meaning were just pulling samples here and there to see if and when we get a first, now it moves into monitoring.”

In West Virginia, cases of CWD have been discovered only in the Slanesville and Yellow Spring areas of Hampshire County.

The WVDNR has been sampling intensively within a one-mile radius of every infected deer in the area. The total surveillance area has increased from about 23 to 24 square miles to 38 square miles.

From September 2005 through April 2008, a total of 4,380 deer have been tested for CWD. Thirty-seven deer have tested positive in Hampshire County.

“That is what we’re testing in. We don’t know exactly how far this has spread, Rogers said.

The WVDNR collects lymph node and brain stem samples from road kill deer and only lymph nodes from hunter harvested deer to test for CWD.

“The lymph nodes are garbage dumps for the body,” Rogers said. They pull all sorts of infection out. This prion shows up in this particular lymph node and it eventually gets to the brain stem.”

Rogers said the WVDNR strives to keep deer densities low and herds young.

“It seems like the older they are, the more they can spread this disease, Rogers said. “If you keep that herd young, you’re decreasing the chances of this disease spreading.”

Rogers said deer in the area are responding positively to the program.

“Even with the numbers of deer we have been shooting in that area, the densities of deer are the same there today, after three years, as they are south of Route 50,” Rogers said. “We’re accomplishing the goal of keeping the density down and keeping it a younger herd.”

“You hit them hard. They produce more young and the young survive better. That’s just the way it is,” Rogers said.

However, the land where the infected deer are located is private property.

“We try to explain to them (landowners) that were facing a 40 to 50 year epidemic that may not start showing dramatic effects in the deer herd for a while,” Rogers said. “ We do encourage land owners to allow us to at least collect a few deer.”

“We have received excellent cooperation from the people in the area,” Rogers said.“There are some people who don’t want us on their property and we honor that.”

The WVDNR encourages hunters to wear gloves when cleaning the deer after a kill, but will not state whether or not a person should eat the meat of a deer infected by CWD.

“We tell people if you want to eat your deer meat that’s up to you,” Rogers said. “We cannot tell the public one way or another.” “So far, research indicates it cannot affect humans,” Rogers said. “But one thing we cannot say with 100 percent certainty is that it will not cross the species barrier into other species.”

Dick Jones, 69, said he eats every deer he kills but always wears rubber gloves to skin the animal.

“I’ve killed a lot of deer in Hampshire County,” Jones said. “If I’m going to shoot it, I’m going to eat it. Anything that I hunt, I eat. If you cook it, I guess it is supposed to be okay. We’ve been told that.”

Benjamin Hott, Jr., 60, has been hunting for almost 48 years. Hott butchers and processes his own deer meat and enjoys eating it fried or as deer bologna. He said he doesn’t worry about CWD when eating the meat.

“If it was infected I probably wouldn’t eat it,” Hott said.“But being I don’t know, as long as a deer acts normal when I shoot it, I’m not really worried about eating the deer. I don’t think, right now, it’s going to transmit over to humans. So there is no real great concern there.” Jonathan Steele, 24, has been hunting whitetail deer for nearly 10 years. Like others he hunts for the meat.

“From what I understand humans cannot get the disease by eating the meat,” Steele said.“But I don’t think it is wise to eat the meat of the deer because the deer aren’t healthy.If I ever saw a deer in the woods that was acting weird, that looked like it was losing its fur or had a bad body, I would shoot it and probably call WVDNR.”

The WVDNR is uncertain how the disease spreads. Rogers speculates it is an animal-to-animal transmission, possibly a fecal/oral route. “Males seem to be more prone to contracting it and possibly spreading it,” Rogers said. “ Probably because during the breeding season with their behavior of checking out a lot of females and just spreading it that way.”

Rogers said controlling CWD is very labor intensive and expensive. Hunting and fishing license dollars primarily pay for the program.

“This has become a priority,” Rogers said. “My guys get taken away from other jobs for this. We’re working 60 to 70 hours a week in the spring.”

To supply dumpsters where hunters can deposit infected carcasses costs nearly $20,000 for three weeks, according to Rogers.

Rogers said the WVDNR uses the West Virginia Department of Highway’s compost bin in Hampshire County to dump infected deer carcasses collected in spring harvests.

“Within three to four weeks the carcass has disappeared. It is completely gone,” Rogers said. “You can feel the heat coming off manure and saw dust. It digests the carcass with very little smell, compared to just leaving that carcass out in the open.

“And as long as the deer stay where they came from, you’re not increasing the chance of spreading the disease. The prion is now contained in that landfill.”

According to Rogers, hunting brings millions of dollars into the state and local budget every year.

“If we have a problem that could result in hunters not wanting to come to the state, we certainly want to be accountable for trying to take care of this problem to the best of our ability,” Rogers said.“There’s a lot of money involved in hunting. We don’t want to lose that.” Rogers said the WVDNR has not seen a decrease in hunters in Hampshire County.

“People are still hunting, and that’s good. We want them to,” Rogers said. “Without the hunters we don’t stand the chance of keeping densities down at all, just on our own. It would be impossible on a large-scale level.“

But as a native of Charleston, W.Va., Steele said CWD does affect his hunting habits.

“I have had the opportunity to hunt in Hardy County, which borders along with Hampshire County,” Steele said. “I have turned down the opportunity a couple times just because I didn’t want to be hunting near where the diseased deer were.”

“I hunt for food and I didn’t want to have to worry about shooting deer that were sick,” Steele said.

Arlie Webb, a resident of Hampshire County, said he doesn’t think CWD is a problem in the area.

“I’m not too concerned about it around here,” Webb said. “From what they say it can be spread around from deer-to-deer but I don’t really see it as a real problem right now.”