News Alert

Cronic Wasting Disease

Chronic Wasting Disease has recently been identified as being a prion. A prion is resistant to chemicals like soap, UV light, heat or bleach. Even if infected meat is grilled at 680 degrees for one hour......it survives. It is not a virus, parasite or bacteria. It is really not a living thing. A protein, spongiform encephalopathy, causes it. It turns the brains into a spongy like substance. It has a one to five year gestation period, so even healthy appearing animals may be infected.

CWD is found in at least eight states and two provinces. It started in Colorado in 1967. Human transport of game animals to and from ranches and farms appears to have spread the disease to Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota New Mexico, Wisconsin and most recently Minnesota. Penning and feeding animals has spread the disease.

Wisconsin hunters were sent into a 280 square mile area to kill 15,000 whitetails. In mid-June landowners or their proxies within a designated 361 square mile "eradication zone" began killing every whitetail on their property.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is testing deer now and wants samples from every county and area of the state. If you see an adult deer, which is freshly killed, call DEC and give them the location. Do not handle the deer. It needs to be an adult deer, not a fawn, due to the long gestation period. We can not afford to take a chance that it arrives in NYS. Please follow DEC's directive to stop feeding deer. If you are caught feeding deer you will be ticketed (even salt licks).

For more info on this disease go to the
Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance web site.