Injustice in the Upper Peninsula
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Pat Durkin column:
State's ho-hum CWD response is a gamble
Oct. 16, 2008 - http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20081016/GPG0702/810160598/1233/GPG02The state's response to finding chronic wasting disease in a Portage County game-farm deer last Friday was so calm, orderly and pragmatic one almost misses the good ol' days of 2002 when we packed auditoriums and gymnasiums for anti-CWD pep rallies.
After confirming CWD in the 7½-year-old doe, Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection put Alligator Creek Whitetails LLC of Junction City under quarantine. No living whitetail can enter or leave the 119-acre enclosure, which has about 150 deer, and each one that dies must be submitted for testing within 48 hours.
DATCP announced Alligator Creek's owners could continue selling "hunts" through Jan. 15 while they negotiate when to "depopulate" the facility, which means killing the remaining deer for testing and paying the owners for their loss. The agency expects to put down the herd sometime between Jan. 16 and March 1.
To reduce escape risks until then, the Department of Natural Resources on Friday sent conservation wardens to inspect the facility's fence. They reported minor problems, none that would allow deer to enter or escape, and gave the owner a week to make repairs. The quarantine order also requires the owners to check the fence twice weekly, and DNR wardens can inspect it without notice.
These actions contrast with Michigan's response to its first CWD case. Michigan announced finding a game-farm deer with CWD on Aug. 25, and within days, killed the facility's deer for testing. But before the first deer fell, the Michigan DNR on Aug. 26 banned deer feeding and baiting in the Lower Peninsula.
Maybe Wisconsin's measured, methodical reaction to its latest infected deer merely reflects familiarity with the disease. We assure ourselves that our initial bout of mass hysteria lacked cause.
Still, we checked maps to find it's about 30 miles from Junction City to Almond, which was home to the infamous Buckhorn Flats deer farm, and 82 of the state's 97 captive deer and elk that tested positive for CWD. DATCP continues reviewing Alligator Creek's transactions for links to other operations with infected deer, but none had been found as of Monday.
Meanwhile, we continue testing hunter-killed deer in much of southern Wisconsin, and the DNR wants to test 8,000 deer across the Northwoods this fall. This marks the first time in six years the region has been checked.
Another glance at the map shows Portage County about halfway between the Northwoods and our endemic CWD zone. Unfortunately, just as no one seemed surprised to find another CWD-infected captive deer in Portage County, no one should twitch when we eventually stumble over a sick wild deer outside southern Wisconsin.
Consider, for example, that since CWD's discovery in February 2002, the state has tested 21,500 captive deer and elk. Less than 100 tested positive, which is a 0.45 percent infection rate. If we remove Buckhorn Flats from the equation, the infection rate is 0.07 percent for captive facilities.
But if not for the fact testing is mandatory for captive deer and elk, it's unlikely we'd have detected most of those cases. After all, DNR and DATCP say it's difficult to find CWD if it infects less than 1 percent of a herd.
So, even though we'll test 8,000 Northwoods deer this fall, the disease likely will escape the net if its infection rate mirrors the 0.45 percent rate of game farms. That's why we'd probably be safer to assume CWD is present in much of the state, but at levels so low we need luck to find it.
Instead, we're gambling the disease isn't outside its established region. We continue to allow people to feed and bait wild deer; we focus protective measures on the easiest target, game farms; and we hope unscheduled fence inspections prevent escapes from CWD-tainted operations while we negotiate when the herd is put down at the cheapest cost.
We wonder why the public yawns about CWD? We're just taking our cues from our lawmakers and state agencies.
— Patrick Durkin is a freelance writer who covers outdoors for the Press-Gazette. E-mail him at patrickdurkin@charter.net.
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