CWD Infected buck found 40 miles from Michigan's U.P.

[AlleganBowhunter]

Not trying to start a debate about baiting, just passing this on to keep others informed.

From the Detroit Free Press:

A whitetail buck infected with chronic wasting disease has been found on a Wisconsin shooting preserve 40 miles from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. That will trigger a ban on baiting and feeding deer in the UP, although the DNRE said it won’t affect the firearms deer season that opens Monday.

Mary Dettloff, a spokesperson the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said that it’s too late to stop people from hunting over bait in the UP because so much corn, beets and other lures have already been put out. But the agency will ask hunters to stop putting out more.



Baiting already is banned in the Lower Peninsula, where a doe on a Kent County deer ranch was found to have the disease two years ago.



CWD is an invariably fatal disease of deer and elk that was first diagnosed in Colorado about 40 years ago. Wildlife biologists say that it is spread by deer coming in contact with mucous and urine from infected deer and that concentrating deer nose-to-nose at bait piles increases the chances of infection.


Dettloff said the DNRE was informed about the Wisconsin buck Friday but would not act on the discovery until it is confirmed by a “gold standard” test at an animal disease laboratory at Ames, Iowa (usually within a few weeks).


If it CWD is confirmed in the Ashland deer, the existing protocol the agency is required to ban baiting and recreational feeding of deer in the UP.


The protocol says, “In the event CWD is documented within Michigan or within 50 miles of Michigan’s border with another state or Canadian province, the (MDNRE) Director shall issue an interim order banning the use of bait and banning the feeding of deer and elk within the peninsula adjacent to the adjoining state or province with CWD or containing CWD.”


While baiting is banned in the Lower Peninsula, the law is very unpopular with many hunters and has been openly flouted. Corn, beets and carrots advertised as deer bait are stacked on pallets at stores and gas stations throughout the state, and bait dealers say hunters have been buying nearly as much as they did before the ban went into effect.


Contact ERIC SHARP: 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com. Read more in his outdoors blog at freep.com/outdoorsblog. Order his book "Fishing Michigan" for $15.95 at www.freep.com/bookstore or by calling 800-245-5082.


Read more: Infected buck found 40 miles from Michigan's U.P. | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/20101113/SPORTS10/101113053/Infected-buck-found-40-miles-from-Michigan-s-U.P.#ixzz15HVbiM6z

[retiredsailor]

This CWD is not going away, is it? It just continues to spread and doesn't seem to be slowing down other than the sharp-shooting efforts, which is having doubtful positive effect, other than reducing the overall deer herds, in those areas contaminated - regardless of which state or locality.

While I am not by any means a trained or knowledgeable biologist, I am wondering if there is any work or research being conducted to develop some sort of vaccine to eradicate this disease. Perhaps I'm being naive, but should such a successful vaccine be developed, seems to me that it could be easily enough distributed to the majority of the wild deer herd (sprayed on bait piles, food plots, and crop dusted, or otherwise distributed throughout the wild/wilderness areas. Would likely be somewhat expensive, but so are the costs of CWD testing, sharp-shooting and the other efforts already being required to try, with albeit, limited success, to combat CWD.
I watched 3 does this past weekend for some 20 minutes or so, eating acorns around a growth of oaks. Nothing had been baited there, no man-made food plots, just natures own bounty.......as I watched these deer, they were constantly touching noses, one eating where another had just move from..........with orchards, field crops, natures own sources, etc., this ban on bait piles and food plots seems like a very ineffectual method of trying to deal with this disease. Why not just attack the disease itself in the form of some sort of vaccine.
Wonder if some university research lab is already working on this, or at best, at least considering it? If successful, it could prove profitable.
This ban on baiting and food plots strikes me as akin to the U.S. saying during World War II, "Let's not fight the Germans or the Japanese......let's just let them run out of bullets. Then the hostilities will end."
Any comments? Am I barking up the wrong tree here? I’ve not read nor heard anything about any efforts to try this approach to resolving CWD.
Just a wild thought.

[highview72]

While I may be wrong I think this situation is being way overblown. First of all this infected deer was found on a shooting preserve. Not a free ranging deer. We have no idea where this deer may have come from. Just because this deer tested positive doesnt mean there is a single deer outside the high fence that has CWD. These high fence preserves are where your problem lies, not baiting. These preserve deer are bought and sold out of pens where they are in constant close contact with many deer that may have been raised somewhere else where that deer was in contact with deer that may have been raised somewhere else again and on and on. Your just asking for the spread of disease this way. Why do you think humans get shots when they go out of the country. And while baiting may pose a small risk I dont think its as big of a deal as has been made of it. Deer naturally feed together under apple trees, oak trees, berry bushes and so on. If CWD is in the area and there are already infected deer the banning of baiting isnt going to stop the spread of the disease. Deer are social animals and it will spread with or without your little pile of corn.

[DeerCamp]

From what I heard this deer came out Neg on the testing for CWD.


A whitetail buck shot on a Wisconsin hunting preserve did not have chronic wasting disease despite an initial positive test, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture said Thursday.



The finding means that baiting and supplemental feeding of deer can continue in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Because the deer was within 50 miles of the Michigan border, baiting and feeding would have been banned had the deer tested positive on a follow-up gold-standard test at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.



Read more: Good news for U.P. deer hunters | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/20101119/S ... z163L7CVKX

[cjgaleana]

Those are some good points you bring up. I really never took into consideration the natural food they have to eat and there isn't anything preventing them from contracting the disease that way. You are right they should attack the problem right from the source, I wonder if there is a cure for CWD or scientists and biologists are looking into.

[cjgaleana]

Does anyone have any idea when the ban on baiting will end in the LP? Now that they found a case 40 miles from the UP who knows how long it will be now!!

[IsitInTREES]

From what I hear the case in Wisconsin ended up not being CWD. 
I beleive baiting is still legal in the U.P.
 
From what I have heard is that the CWD action plan was to ban baiting for 3 years.
Well, this is year three.
 
I've heard that the DNR probably won't remove the baiting ban after this season.
 
I know it sounds lazy, but I have two little boys that want to start hunting.  Baiting can sure help peak their interest with all of the deer sightings.  This year hasn't been a great year for their trips with me.

[DeerCamp]

To be real... I have a feeling that this is someone with some money, thats having a say in this.. Weather its QDM, Whitetails Unlimited, or someone eles.. Look at the rules coming into place... 3 On one side in the UP, and some areas in the LP, No baiting in the LP, and lets say there is a ban on baiting in the UP... With the 3 on one side rule and no baiting, there going to lose a lot of hunters... But then again, who knows? To me the DNRE in Michigan is a big joke!

[Sailfish]

ORIGINAL: DeerCamp

To be real... I have a feeling that this is someone with some money, thats having a say in this.. Weather its QDM, Whitetails Unlimited, or someone eles.. Look at the rules coming into place...

Think HSUS, EDF, PEW  type of organizations. Groups with BIG money that have members/individuals in all areas of government. From local to federal. These types of "policy-makers" will see to it that the general public will have no rights/access to public resources. They will start small and just keeping taking from us.
Just look at Obama's selection for the leader of NOAA, Dr. Lubchenco. These are the types of appointments that will slowly(actually in her case its VERY fast!) take away our rights to access lands and waters.