Harold, a little more news on the chronic deer wasting disease
"Officials: Speed up deer tests
By LEE BERGQUIST
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: May 30, 2002
Madison - Government officials came under fire Thursday for their pace in setting up a program that would let private laboratories test deer for chronic wasting disease this fall.
Quotable
Are we going to go through the regulatory process for the next two or three or four years before we have some kind of test that people can rely on - or do we go with what we have right
now?
- Herbert Behnke, DNR board member
Archived Coverage
Special Section: Chronic wasting disease
Companies that want to set up labs to test for the fatal brain disease said government is moving too slowly at a time when hunters want assurances that their deer will be safe to eat, and two members of the state Natural Resources Board agree.
More than a dozen companies attended a meeting with government agencies to talk about the logistics of setting up labs that could test deer for the presence of the disease, which is similar to mad cow disease.
The Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Madison is gearing up to conduct testing on thousands of deer that will help the state determine the extent of the disease in Wisconsin, but the government lab cannot accommodate the 300,000 or more deer typically killed during the hunting season. There are concerns that thousands of hunters might not head into the woods this fall unless they can be assured that the deer they kill are safe to eat.
"The hunters are absolutely going to demand this," said state Natural Resources Board Chairman Trygve Solberg. "We need to restore some public confidence."
Those at the meeting again emphasized that no test exists for hunters to use themselves, and most experts said the process of extracting tissue from the head and lymph nodes of a deer would would have to be handled by a trained technician.
Officials from the Department of Natural Resources and other agencies said they are moving as quickly as possible. Also, a state veterinarian said that deer hunters across the state - except for a region near Mount Horeb where 18 deer have tested positive for the disease - should be reasonably confident that the deer they shoot this fall would be safe to eat.
Criticism, frustration
However, the pointed criticisms underscored the frustration in some quarters about how Wisconsin is handling the problem.
In recent weeks, some hunters have questioned whether the DNR will be able to kill as many as 15,000 deer within a 361-square-mile near Mount Horeb, west of Madison, and reduce the deer population by 50% in 10 surrounding counties. The control strategies are aimed at wiping out a disease that has existed in several Western states for years but suddenly appeared in Wisconsin this year.
Chronic wasting disease affects the brain and lymphatic tissue in deer, but the World Health Organization has said there is no scientific evidence the disease can infect humans. However, WHO says no part of a deer or elk with evidence of the disease should be eaten by people or other animals.
The biggest critic at Thursday's meeting was Hayward businessman William "Butch" Johnson, who helped pay for a recent statewide St. Norbert College poll that found that 36% of Wisconsin's deer hunters are considering not hunting this fall because of safety concerns.
Johnson and his partners want to spend $1 million to build a lab that could test up to 1,000 deer a day for the disease. The new company, Wildlife Support Services, would charge $50 for a test it figures would cost about $38 to conduct.
The group has been working on a business plan for two months but has failed to receive any help from government authorities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture would probably have to approve such a lab, and the lab's testing procedures would require USDA approval.
"We want to know what we can do to get going, and I haven't heard that from anyone around the table," said Johnson, who owns Johnson Timber Corp. "How do we get going? I haven't heard anyone say how we can get going. That's all I want, so that we can start buying equipment and start training people and do it right."
Johnson said the stakes are high if one-third or more of the hunters stay out of the woods this fall.
He estimated $100 million in lost revenue and $5 million in lost sales tax revenue for the state. The state Department of Commerce has estimated that deer hunting generates $233 million a year in revenue during the nine-day hunt, but the estimates do not include related sales out of the season.
Board members concerned
Two members of the DNR board - Solberg, of Minocqua, and Herbert Behnke of Shawano - also said government agencies need to work faster.
Behnke said deer hunters need some assurances about safety but not a perfect test that would stand the scrutiny of research scientists.
"Are we going to go through the regulatory process for the next two or three or four years before we have some kind of test that people can rely on - or do we go with what we have right now?" Behnke asked.
But officials from both federal and state agencies said the reliability of a test is critical.
Tom Hauge, director of wildlife management for the DNR, acknowledged that "the recurring theme I get from everybody is that you are not moving fast enough."
"But we can't ignore regulations and food safety concerns," Hauge said. "We can't just blow that off . . . because the State of Wisconsin, whether you like it or not, is going to be viewed as giving some kind of endorsement to these tests that come through. We have got to do it right."
Afterward, state Agriculture Secretary Jim Harsdorf said he believed some private labs will be operating by this fall. However, he said those labs will probably use a highly reliable test that takes three days to complete. The test is not suitable for mass testing. Faster tests are still under review by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In a related meeting Thursday, members of the Wisconsin Commercial Deer and Elk Farmer's Association said they had been taking steps to fight the disease before it was discovered in Wisconsin. However, the group said the demand by some activists to test every deer or elk that dies on a game farm is not practical.
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 31, 2002." |
