Michigan DNR announces expansion of Chronic Wasting Disease Core Area and Management Zone

Additional townships and counties are affected

The Michigan Natural Resources Commission expanded the Core Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Area to include 17 townships. This area, which will continue to be referred to as Deer Management Unit (DMU) 333, now will consist of Lansing, Meridian, Williamstown, Delhi, Alaiedon and Wheatfield townships in Ingham County; DeWitt, Bath, Watertown, Eagle, Westphalia, Riley, Olive and Victor townships in Clinton County; Woodhull Township in Shiawassee County, and Oneida and Delta townships in Eaton County.

The CWD Management Zone also has expanded; it now will include the remainder of Clinton, Eaton, Ingham and Shiawassee counties, as well as all of Ionia County. The expanded Management Zone will be referred to as DMU 419.

“With the detection of CWD-positive deer in the southern part of Clinton County, we need to better understand the magnitude of the disease in those areas,” said Chad Stewart, Department of Natural Resources deer specialist. “Expanding our surveillance to include those areas is key at this point, and we need help from landowners and hunters within the expanded zone to help us with this effort.”

Other regulation changes include:

• Banning deer feeding and baiting on all properties within the Core CWD Area and Management Zone.
• Opening Eaton and Ionia counties to the early antlerless deer season.
• Allowing roadkill deer in the Core CWD Area to be possessed and kept with a DNR-issued salvage tag from a law enforcement officer or DNR employee, as long as the head is submitted to a DNR biologist, biologist appointee or check station.

Continuing from last year, other regulation reminders include:

• Those hunting within the Core CWD Area are required to present the head of all hunter-harvested deerwithin 72 hours of harvest to a DNR deer check station.
• Hunters leaving the Core CWD Area are required to present the entire carcass of all hunter-harvested deer originating from the Core CWD Area within 72 hours of harvest to a DNR deer check station. (A list of deer check stations is available at michigan.gov/deercheck.)
• All live free-ranging deer from within the CWD Management Zone or Core CWD Area are prohibited from being rehabilitated. Permittees located within the CWD Management Zone or Core CWD Area may no longer rehabilitate deer.

CWD affects members of the deer family, including elk and moose. It is caused by the transmission of infectious, self-multiplying proteins (prions) contained in saliva and other body fluids of infected animals. Since the May 2015 discovery of chronic wasting disease in a free-ranging, Michigan white-tailed deer, more than 5,000 deer have been tested for CWD in order to gauge the extent of the disease across the landscape. Of those tested, seven deer were confirmed positive for the disease in Clinton and Ingham counties.

To date, there is no evidence that the disease presents any risk to non-cervids, including humans, either through contact with an infected animal or from handling venison. As a precaution, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization recommend infected animals not be consumed as food by either humans or domestic animals.

To learn more about CWD, visit mi.gov/cwd.

In an effort to end common CWD misconceptions, the DNR in mid-July will launch a 10-week CWD myth-busting campaign. Visit mi.gov/cwd for more information at that time.

U.P. Focus: DNR launches ‘Keep the U.P. CWD Free!’ campaign in the Upper Peninsula

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has launched a public information and education campaign to try to keep chronic wasting disease from reaching the Upper Peninsula.

Discovered earlier this year in free-ranging deer in the Lower Peninsula, CWD affects the central nervous system and is fatal to white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose. There is no known treatment.

DNR officials are concerned CWD could be brought into the U.P. by those hunting in other states.

From billboards and bumper stickers to an informational fact sheet and television and radio broadcasts, the DNR is working to inform the public about preventing CWD from occurring in the U.P.

“This is an insidious disease and it’s going to take partnership by all people concerned — hunters, DNR and other folks — to make sure that not only do we not get it, but if we ever do get it, that we don’t spread this disease across the peninsula,” said Terry Minzey, DNR U.P. regional wildlife supervisor in Ishpeming. “It can have long-term ramifications on our deer herd. While it may not impact us, it will certainly have impacts on our grandchildren.”

Chronic wasting disease first was discovered in Colorado in 1967. Mutated prions form small lesions in the brains of animals that cause death. In bovines, mutated prions can produce mad cow disease. There are no known CWD health risks to humans.

The disease may be spread by animal-to-animal contact. It also may be transmitted by contact with saliva, urine, feces, blood, carcass parts of an infected animal or soil.

CWD first was detected in Michigan in 2008 in a white-tailed deer at a privately owned cervid (deer, elk, moose) facility in Kent County.

In May 2015, a free-ranging white-tailed deer in Ingham County’s Meridian Township tested positive for CWD. A second CWD case — a 2-year-old male wild deer — was detected in July. In August, CWD was found in a 5-year-old doe. All three of those deer were located within a mile of each other.

Subsequent genetic testing showed all three infected deer were from the same family. The DNR andMichigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development set up a nine-township Core Area and a three county Management Zone around the area of the infected deer, placing various restrictions in effect.

Since then, more than 1,500 deer have been tested with no further cases of CWD discovered.

“Chronic wasting disease is a devastating disease and fatal, not only for the individual deer that contracts it, but also it’s devastating for a deer herd,” said Ashley Autenrieth, DNR deer program biologist in Gaylord. “That is why we are working so hard in southern Michigan right now to determine whether or not the disease has been established there. And if so, we will work just as hard to attempt to eradicate the disease.”

Dave Dragon, a DNR wildlife technician at the Crystal Falls office, worked previously in Wyoming, the place with the highest incidence of CWD in the world.

“In deer herds in which CWD is found, the herd usually ends up being dominated by 2 ½-year-olds and younger,” Dragon said. “This is due to the fact that deer that are infected with CWD rarely live beyond 2 ½-years old. This ends up being really problematic when you consider that up to around half of the deer population can be infected with CWD. So the effect is profound.”

Signs of CWD in deer include loss of body condition or emaciation, changes in behavior (including a loss of fear of humans), loss of bodily control or movements or excessive drooling and salivating.

Hunting generates more than $2.3 billion annually for Michigan’s economy. A healthy deer population is critical to the state’s economy. Last year in the U.P., more than 84,000 hunters harvested a total of 25,961 deer, including 19,431 antlered bucks.

Confirmed cases of CWD have been found in 23 states and two Canadian provinces. Hunters hunting in those areas could bring CWD back with them to the U.P., unless importation rules are followed.

Wisconsin officials have confirmed CWD cases just 75 miles from Menominee and 115 miles from Ironwood.

The Michigan DNR has erected billboards near the Michigan-Wisconsin border at Menominee, Norway and Ironwood, urging hunters who hunt out of state to know the facts about CWD and know the rules.

“To keep CWD from reaching the U.P., hunters need to educate themselves and they need to help educate others,” said John Pepin, DNR deputy public information officer in Marquette. “There are restrictions on bringing deer back to the U.P. from infected states and provinces, and dangers for the U.P. deer herd if these rules are not followed.”

The DNR has a great deal of educational information about CWD, including a fact sheet specific to the U.P. and information for taxidermists on the state’s Emerging Diseases Issues website atwww.michigan.gov/cwd.

The information sheets and “Keep the U.P. CWD Free!” bumper stickers will be available from DNR offices and deer check stations across the region.

An upcoming broadcast of WNMU-TV13’s “Media Meet” will focus on CWD and keeping it from the U.P. The program initially will air at 6:30 p.m. EST Dec. 5 and be rebroadcast at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 6 and in January 2016.

Guests on the half-hour program include Autenrieth, Minzey, Dragon and Pepin.

The broadcast will reach viewers across the U.P. and parts of northern Wisconsin. A week after the initial broadcast, the television program will be available online at http://wnmuvideo.nmu.edu/program/media-meet/.

Public Radio 90 also will air the program at 7:30 a.m. Dec. 6, repeating at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 7. The program also will be available on Public Radio 90’s podcast at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wnmu/.jukebox?action=programs.

Information on the education campaign also will be distributed to the DNR’s eastern and western U.P. Citizens’ Advisory Councils. The eastern advisory council formed a CWD subcommittee in April 2014 and produced a fact sheet of its own to distribute to various groups.

“It was thought and hoped that the formation of this group would help the general public become informed as well,” said subcommittee chairman Tom Buckingham of Newberry. “Many of us on the subcommittee were keenly aware of the fact that once CWD arrives, it is virtually impossible to get rid of it.”

Buckingham warned of potential grave consequences.

“Due to the complexities of the U.P. deer herd — migration, supplemental feeding, predators — if CWD arrives, it could very well mean the end of deer hunting in the U.P. as we now know it,” he said.

Buckingham said the best offense is to raise public awareness on deer-handling procedures and other concerns, and try to keep infected animals from being brought to the U.P. from outside the state.

For more information, visit www.michigan.gov/cwd.

Michigan confirms chronic wasting disease in second free-ranging white-tailed deer

CWD Deer, courtesy Wisconsin DNR

The Michigan departments of Natural Resources (DNR) and Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) have confirmed a second free-ranging deer in Meridian Township (Ingham County) has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal neurological disease that affects white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose. This second case is a 2-year-old male found less than a mile from the initial positive female deer, confirmed this past May. Genetic testing is being conducted to see if the two deer are related.
“Finding this second positive deer is disappointing, however, not unexpected,” said DNR Wildlife Division Chief Russ Mason. “We will continue with our aggressive surveillance throughout the summer and fall. With the assistance of hunters, we hope to determine the distribution of this disease.”
To date, 304 deer have been tested in the Core CWD Area. Only two have tested positive for CWD.
Upon the finding of the initial CWD positive deer, the DNR established the CWD Management Zone consisting of Clinton, Ingham and Shiawassee counties.
Additionally, the Core CWD Area consisting of Lansing, Meridian, Williamstown, Delhi, Alaiedon and Wheatfield townships in Ingham County; DeWitt and Bath townships in Clinton County; and Woodhull Township in Shiawassee County, was created. Feeding and baiting of deer and elk are prohibited in the CWD Management Zone. Mandatory checking of deer will be required in the Core CWD Area during hunting seasons and restrictions will apply to the movement of carcasses and parts of deer taken in this area.
“Michigan has a long tradition of hunter support and conservation ethics. Now, with these CWD findings, that support is needed more than ever,” said Steve Schmitt, veterinarian-in-charge at the DNR Wildlife Disease Lab. “Because hunters are often familiar with the deer herd locally, one of the best things they can do to help manage this disease is to continue hunting and bring their deer to check stations this season.”
In the Core CWD Area, there is an unlimited antlerless deer license quota and the deer license or deer combo licenses may be used to harvest antlerless or any antlered deer during firearm and muzzleloading seasons. Additional deer-check stations will be established in the Core CWD Area and the CWD Management Zone to accommodate hunters.
To date, there is no evidence that chronic wasting disease presents any risk to non-cervids, including humans, either through contact with an infected animal or from handling contaminated venison. However, as a precaution, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization recommend that infected animals not be consumed as food by either humans or domestic animals.
The DNR asks that the public and hunters continue to report deer that are unusually thin and exhibiting unusual behavior (for example, acting tame around humans and allowing someone to approach).
To report a suspicious-looking deer, call the DNR Wildlife Disease Lab at 517-336-5030 or fill out and submit the online observation report, found on the DNR website.
DNR staff will continue with road-kill collection in the Core CWD Area. To report road-kills found in the Core CWD Area call the Wildlife Disease Hotline at 517-614-9602. Leave a voicemail with location information and staff will attempt to pick up carcasses on the next open business day.
More information on CWD, including Michigan’s CWD surveillance and response plan and weekly testing updates, are available at www.michigan.gov/cwd.