The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) is finishing up the latest draft of their new Chronic Wasting Disease Response Plan, which could be approved before the Oct. 3 opener of the statewide archery season. The plan is an outline for how to manage CWD in deer and elk.

Steps to achieve these goals include a statewide ban on feeding deer, including the use of minerals or supplements; a statewide ban on the use or field possession of deer attractants, such as natural urine and synthetics; more hunting opportunities and the removal of deer antler-point restrictions within CWD areas.

Public responses to the plan are being accepted until May 7. Afterward, PGC staff will finalize the draft plan and then the board of commissioners will hold a meeting on whether to implement the plan as presented or approve certain items, according to agency spokesman Travis Lau. Depending on how the meeting goes, archery hunters statewide may be banned from using natural deer urine or synthetic versions as early as the 2020 season.

Although synthetic deer lure doesn’t contain the prions thought to cause CWD, Lau said officials are considering prohibiting these products in order to minimize deer congregation, which officials believe spreads the disease.

Besides hunters, those in the captive cervid industry, both in Pennsylvania and nationally, will be hit the hardest by this plan. This industry supplies the natural deer lure used by hunters, and prohibiting these products in Pennsylvania would take away a major market, according to Josh Newton, president of the Pennsylvania Deer Farmers Association. Newton questions if the risk deer lures pose is actually significant.

Newton said that high concentrations of CWD prions are found in the lymph nodes, spinal cord and brain tissue of an infected animal, while the amount of CWD prions in the urine, saliva and feces of an infected animal is very low.

“A paperclip-size of brain matter from a positive animal is equal to 30,000 gallons of urine when it comes to prion concentration,” Newton said. “Urine is way low on the infectious sheet.”

 

In terms of congregating deer, Newton felt a ban on deer lures is unnecessary.

“A hunter with a 1-ounce bottle of deer urine hanging from a tree, I don’t see it having a big impact,” he said.

At many collection facilities, deer are closely watched and tested for CWD, Newton said. In fact, the test used to confirm the presence of CWD prions for research purposes is the same test used by deer urine manufacturers. The Archery Trade Association also has a rigid CWD-free certification program, and less than a dozen facilities have qualified for it. Those facilities provide most of the deer urine used by American manufacturers.

Testing deer for CWD – which can only be done after an animal has died – and enforcing regulations isn’t the way to manage CWD in the state, Newton said. He feels the focus should instead be on genetics. Current research is beginning to explain why some animals aren’t getting CWD, Newton said, and it could lead to deer farmers being able to breed without the potential for the disease. 

Until then, the cervid industry will experience more regulations that could cause major financial burdens. Newton said the Pennsylvania cervid industry has already decreased by 35% due to CWD regulations.

“Our intention isn’t to spread disease,” he said. “But we need to turn what the science is telling us into a regulatory document that’s sensible and allows people to operate their business without burden.”

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