CWD in PA......................
11-25-2006 | 07:29 PM
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Fork Horn
Joined: Feb 2003
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From: lackawaxen PA USA
CWD in PA......................
anybody see this in the blus ridge channel 13 news in PA....
CHRONIC WASTE DISEASE TESTING
November 21, 2006
It’s a deadly disease that kills deer, elk, and moose, and if left uncontrolled could wipe out their entire population.
Chronic waste disease has spread to 14 states including New York.
Now Pike and Wayne County officals fear it could come to their area.
The state game commission plans to test around four thousand deer this year, harvested from the hunting season.
Wayne Wildlife Conservation Officer Frank Dooley says, "If a deer is found to be infected we will eradicate every deer within a 50 mile radius. Then proper disposal would mean taking the deer to a secure land fill to be burned then buried."
Humans who eat meat infected with C.W.D. could experience serious negative effects.
now here is a map to say a deer is found to have CWD a 50 radius from that spot in the middle means a 100 mile circle....how many deer do ya think would be in that circle that would have to be eradicate....fancy word fer killed off....
this should be read by all to get to know the gist of CWD instead of assumeing that you know....i know i thought i knew bout it from a hunting show on tv but they were not real clear on how, what, where or why....also this might be handy to pass on to all of our state game Commission's....i'm sure they know but.............bob
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
Import Ban & Restriction On Hunter-Killed Carcass Parts
What Every Taxidermist Should Know About Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
What is Chronic Wasting Disease?
CWD is a member of the TSE (Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy) family of diseases that includes BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or Mad Cow Disease in cattle), CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans), and Scrapie in sheep and goats. It was first recognized in Colorado deer and elk in 1967. The specific cause of CWD is believed to be an abnormal prion (protein infectious particle) that is found in the brain, central nervous system and some lymphoid tissues of infected animals. It causes death of brain cells, and on a microscopic level, holes appear in the brain tissue.
What animals get CWD?
CWD has been diagnosed in members of the cervid family and has been found in mule deer, white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, mule deer and white-tailed deer hybrids and elk. As with Scrapie of sheep, CWD has not been shown to be transmissible to humans or livestock. It has been diagnosed in deer and elk in 13 states and 2 Canadian provinces:
Colorado - 1
Nebraska - 1
New York - 1
South Dakota - 1
Wisconsin - 1
Wyoming - 1
Alberta, Canada - 2
Kansas - 2
Minnesota - 2
Montana2 -
Oklahoma - 2
Illinois - 3
New Mexico - 3
Utah - 3
West Virginia - 3
1 - CWD in both captive and wild cervids
2 - CWD in captive cervids only
3 - CWD in wild cervids only
How is CWD transmitted?
CWD is transmitted through animal to animal contact and feed or water sources contaminated with bodily excretions. Contaminated carcasses or high risk carcass parts may also spread the disease indirectly to cervids through environmental contamination.
What are the signs of CWD?
Animals infected with CWD show a general loss of body condition, most notably weight loss. Excessive drinking, urination, salivation, and drooling are common in the late stages of the disease. Behavioral changes such as repetitive walking patterns, droopy ears, wide-based stance, and listlessness also accompany CWD infection. The onset of these signs may not become evident for years. There is no known cure and this disease is always fatal.
Preventing the spread of CWD through the movement of hunter-killed carcass parts
The movement of high-risk carcass parts (brain, spinal cord, lymph tissues) is a potential source of spread of CWD from infected areas. These materials have not been known to spread CWD across jurisdictional borders, but there are states where the source of CWD is unknown. Investigations in New York are indicating that a possible source of infection was through a taxidermist who accepted specimens from CWD-positive states, allowed fawns he was rehabilitating access to his taxidermy workshop, and spread potentially infectious curing salt waste as a fence line weed killer on his deer farm. Several states have developed regulations to control the transport of high-risk carcass parts. In Pennsylvania, we recommend that hunters hunting in CWD-positive areas get their animals tested, and leave high-risk parts where they hunted. A regulation was passed at the June Commission meeting to give the Executive Director the authority to ban high-risk carcass parts. This regulation will be considered for final adoption at the October meeting, and if passed, may result in an immediate ban. For updated information visit the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Web site at www.pgc.state.pa.us.
What can you do as a taxidermist to prevent the spread of CWD?
Determine if the specimen presented to you is from a CWD-positive area.
If so, ask if tissues were submitted for testing, and if test results are known.
For specimens from CWD-positive areas that have tested positive, or if status is unknown, take precautions to make sure tissues and taxidermy waste are properly disposed of.
Proper disposal includes delivery to a regulated landfill through the trash, food waste dumpsters or direct delivery. CWD positive or suspect waste should not be rendered, burned in burn barrels (not hot enough to destroy prion), deposited in bone piles or spread in areas where it can come in contact with other animals.
Do not allow animals to have access to your taxidermy area or taxidermy waste.
Import Ban & Restriction On
Hunter-Killed Carcass Parts
What is Chronic Wasting Disease?
There is a lot of information flying around right now, some accurate, some not, regarding the high risk parts ban. Let me give you the Department of Agriculture's intent and the facts of the ban.
The intent is to prevent material, which is most likely to contain the CWD prions (brain & spinal cord) from being brought into PA and discarded in woods, fields, etc., after processing. After decomposition the prions can remain, contaminate vegetation, water, etc., and infect susceptible cervids in PA.
As a result, we are banning heads and backbones BUT NOT antlers, skull caps and cleaned capes and hides. In other words, the antlers and skull caps can be brought back (as long as they have no visible brain or spinal cord tissue on them) along with boned meat, cleaned eye teeth or finished taxidermy mounts.
If someone brings a whole head that has been harvested in a banned state to a taxidermist, we ask that they contact their regional PDA office to report it. The taxidermist is allowed to remove the antlers with skull cap attached, but cleaned of all visible brain and spinal cord material. He/she is allowed to cape the animal and keep it and the hide, again as long as all visible brain and spinal cord tissue is removed.
The brainstem (obex) and retropharyngeal lymph nodes should be harvested by the taxidermist if he/she is a trained CCT (Certified CWD Technician) or arrangements can be made with the PDA regional staff for them to harvest these tissues so that CWD testing can be done and the hunter notified of CWD status for meat consumption decision purposes.
The regional PDA staff is charged with collection of the banned materials so that they can be properly destroyed. This is to help protect your PA deer herd and helps stop the spread of CWD.
If a whole animal from a CWD infected state is brought back to PA and processed, either by yourself or a meat processor, the remaining carcass parts after butchering / processing should be bagged and kept separate. You must notify your local PDA office and they will collect them for incineration.
PDA urgently requests that taxidermists do not allow any high risk parts originating from any cervids from any state be disposed of through a rendering service. Our concern is that this allows for the possibility of prions being introduced to animal food channels. Although CWD is not known to be infectious to other species at this time, this is a new disease and much research on these matters has not yet been done. This is very important.
To Summarize: If an intact head is brought from a state named in the ban and presented to a taxidermist, PDA's ban DOES NOT PREVENT MOUNTING OF THAT HEAD. What it does require of the taxidermist is:
Reporting to the PDA regional office.
Preparing the mount so that skull cap & antlers, cape & hide are preserved free of brain and spinal cord tissue.
Brain stem and retropharyngeal lymph nodes are saved for testing.
Make the banned materials available for PDA regional staff to collect for disposal.
We know this is all new and there are bound to be situations that have not been anticipated. Our desire is to make this as clear and unambiguous as possible for all concerned. As of today, CWD has been detected in wild and captive herds of deer and / or elk in Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia (Hampshire County), Wisconsin, and Wyoming, as well as in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Oklahoma and Kansas are not listed in PDA's high risk parts ban because CWD has not been detected in wild cervid population. There is no practical way to test live animals for CWD, nor is there a vaccine.
If you have any questions about CWD please call your regional PA Dept. of Ag. office or the Bureau of Animal Health or Dan Snyder from the PA Taxidermy Association. Feel free to copy this letter and give to your customers, local meat processors, sportsman's groups, and sporting goods stores. The more folks that understand how this disease can effect our PA deer herd and what they can do to help prevent its spread the better. THANKS!!
David R. Griswold, VMD
Assistant Director
Bureau of Animal Health & Diagnostic Services
2301 N. Cameron Street
Harrisburg, PA 17110-9408
Phone: 717-772-2852
Fax: 717-787-1868 Dan Snyder
Pennsylvania Taxidermist Association, Inc.
71 Hughey Road
Greenville, PA 16125
[email protected]
Phone: 724-253-4374
Fax: 724-253-2110
CHRONIC WASTE DISEASE TESTING
November 21, 2006
It’s a deadly disease that kills deer, elk, and moose, and if left uncontrolled could wipe out their entire population.
Chronic waste disease has spread to 14 states including New York.
Now Pike and Wayne County officals fear it could come to their area.
The state game commission plans to test around four thousand deer this year, harvested from the hunting season.
Wayne Wildlife Conservation Officer Frank Dooley says, "If a deer is found to be infected we will eradicate every deer within a 50 mile radius. Then proper disposal would mean taking the deer to a secure land fill to be burned then buried."
Humans who eat meat infected with C.W.D. could experience serious negative effects.
now here is a map to say a deer is found to have CWD a 50 radius from that spot in the middle means a 100 mile circle....how many deer do ya think would be in that circle that would have to be eradicate....fancy word fer killed off....
this should be read by all to get to know the gist of CWD instead of assumeing that you know....i know i thought i knew bout it from a hunting show on tv but they were not real clear on how, what, where or why....also this might be handy to pass on to all of our state game Commission's....i'm sure they know but.............bob
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
Import Ban & Restriction On Hunter-Killed Carcass Parts
What Every Taxidermist Should Know About Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
What is Chronic Wasting Disease?
CWD is a member of the TSE (Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy) family of diseases that includes BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or Mad Cow Disease in cattle), CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans), and Scrapie in sheep and goats. It was first recognized in Colorado deer and elk in 1967. The specific cause of CWD is believed to be an abnormal prion (protein infectious particle) that is found in the brain, central nervous system and some lymphoid tissues of infected animals. It causes death of brain cells, and on a microscopic level, holes appear in the brain tissue.
What animals get CWD?
CWD has been diagnosed in members of the cervid family and has been found in mule deer, white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, mule deer and white-tailed deer hybrids and elk. As with Scrapie of sheep, CWD has not been shown to be transmissible to humans or livestock. It has been diagnosed in deer and elk in 13 states and 2 Canadian provinces:
Colorado - 1
Nebraska - 1
New York - 1
South Dakota - 1
Wisconsin - 1
Wyoming - 1
Alberta, Canada - 2
Kansas - 2
Minnesota - 2
Montana2 -
Oklahoma - 2
Illinois - 3
New Mexico - 3
Utah - 3
West Virginia - 3
1 - CWD in both captive and wild cervids
2 - CWD in captive cervids only
3 - CWD in wild cervids only
How is CWD transmitted?
CWD is transmitted through animal to animal contact and feed or water sources contaminated with bodily excretions. Contaminated carcasses or high risk carcass parts may also spread the disease indirectly to cervids through environmental contamination.
What are the signs of CWD?
Animals infected with CWD show a general loss of body condition, most notably weight loss. Excessive drinking, urination, salivation, and drooling are common in the late stages of the disease. Behavioral changes such as repetitive walking patterns, droopy ears, wide-based stance, and listlessness also accompany CWD infection. The onset of these signs may not become evident for years. There is no known cure and this disease is always fatal.
Preventing the spread of CWD through the movement of hunter-killed carcass parts
The movement of high-risk carcass parts (brain, spinal cord, lymph tissues) is a potential source of spread of CWD from infected areas. These materials have not been known to spread CWD across jurisdictional borders, but there are states where the source of CWD is unknown. Investigations in New York are indicating that a possible source of infection was through a taxidermist who accepted specimens from CWD-positive states, allowed fawns he was rehabilitating access to his taxidermy workshop, and spread potentially infectious curing salt waste as a fence line weed killer on his deer farm. Several states have developed regulations to control the transport of high-risk carcass parts. In Pennsylvania, we recommend that hunters hunting in CWD-positive areas get their animals tested, and leave high-risk parts where they hunted. A regulation was passed at the June Commission meeting to give the Executive Director the authority to ban high-risk carcass parts. This regulation will be considered for final adoption at the October meeting, and if passed, may result in an immediate ban. For updated information visit the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Web site at www.pgc.state.pa.us.
What can you do as a taxidermist to prevent the spread of CWD?
Determine if the specimen presented to you is from a CWD-positive area.
If so, ask if tissues were submitted for testing, and if test results are known.
For specimens from CWD-positive areas that have tested positive, or if status is unknown, take precautions to make sure tissues and taxidermy waste are properly disposed of.
Proper disposal includes delivery to a regulated landfill through the trash, food waste dumpsters or direct delivery. CWD positive or suspect waste should not be rendered, burned in burn barrels (not hot enough to destroy prion), deposited in bone piles or spread in areas where it can come in contact with other animals.
Do not allow animals to have access to your taxidermy area or taxidermy waste.
Import Ban & Restriction On
Hunter-Killed Carcass Parts
What is Chronic Wasting Disease?
There is a lot of information flying around right now, some accurate, some not, regarding the high risk parts ban. Let me give you the Department of Agriculture's intent and the facts of the ban.
The intent is to prevent material, which is most likely to contain the CWD prions (brain & spinal cord) from being brought into PA and discarded in woods, fields, etc., after processing. After decomposition the prions can remain, contaminate vegetation, water, etc., and infect susceptible cervids in PA.
As a result, we are banning heads and backbones BUT NOT antlers, skull caps and cleaned capes and hides. In other words, the antlers and skull caps can be brought back (as long as they have no visible brain or spinal cord tissue on them) along with boned meat, cleaned eye teeth or finished taxidermy mounts.
If someone brings a whole head that has been harvested in a banned state to a taxidermist, we ask that they contact their regional PDA office to report it. The taxidermist is allowed to remove the antlers with skull cap attached, but cleaned of all visible brain and spinal cord material. He/she is allowed to cape the animal and keep it and the hide, again as long as all visible brain and spinal cord tissue is removed.
The brainstem (obex) and retropharyngeal lymph nodes should be harvested by the taxidermist if he/she is a trained CCT (Certified CWD Technician) or arrangements can be made with the PDA regional staff for them to harvest these tissues so that CWD testing can be done and the hunter notified of CWD status for meat consumption decision purposes.
The regional PDA staff is charged with collection of the banned materials so that they can be properly destroyed. This is to help protect your PA deer herd and helps stop the spread of CWD.
If a whole animal from a CWD infected state is brought back to PA and processed, either by yourself or a meat processor, the remaining carcass parts after butchering / processing should be bagged and kept separate. You must notify your local PDA office and they will collect them for incineration.
PDA urgently requests that taxidermists do not allow any high risk parts originating from any cervids from any state be disposed of through a rendering service. Our concern is that this allows for the possibility of prions being introduced to animal food channels. Although CWD is not known to be infectious to other species at this time, this is a new disease and much research on these matters has not yet been done. This is very important.
To Summarize: If an intact head is brought from a state named in the ban and presented to a taxidermist, PDA's ban DOES NOT PREVENT MOUNTING OF THAT HEAD. What it does require of the taxidermist is:
Reporting to the PDA regional office.
Preparing the mount so that skull cap & antlers, cape & hide are preserved free of brain and spinal cord tissue.
Brain stem and retropharyngeal lymph nodes are saved for testing.
Make the banned materials available for PDA regional staff to collect for disposal.
We know this is all new and there are bound to be situations that have not been anticipated. Our desire is to make this as clear and unambiguous as possible for all concerned. As of today, CWD has been detected in wild and captive herds of deer and / or elk in Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia (Hampshire County), Wisconsin, and Wyoming, as well as in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Oklahoma and Kansas are not listed in PDA's high risk parts ban because CWD has not been detected in wild cervid population. There is no practical way to test live animals for CWD, nor is there a vaccine.
If you have any questions about CWD please call your regional PA Dept. of Ag. office or the Bureau of Animal Health or Dan Snyder from the PA Taxidermy Association. Feel free to copy this letter and give to your customers, local meat processors, sportsman's groups, and sporting goods stores. The more folks that understand how this disease can effect our PA deer herd and what they can do to help prevent its spread the better. THANKS!!
David R. Griswold, VMD
Assistant Director
Bureau of Animal Health & Diagnostic Services
2301 N. Cameron Street
Harrisburg, PA 17110-9408
Phone: 717-772-2852
Fax: 717-787-1868 Dan Snyder
Pennsylvania Taxidermist Association, Inc.
71 Hughey Road
Greenville, PA 16125
[email protected]
Phone: 724-253-4374
Fax: 724-253-2110
