DNR says its efforts on CWD have failed

By Anita Weier
October 26, 2006

"The sobering conclusion of the department's CWD leaders is that we have not made as much progress as we would have hoped in managing this disease," DNR Secretary Scott Hassett told the Natural Resources Board in a written and verbal report.

The fatal brain wasting disease has spread through much of southern Wisconsin in the years since it was first discovered in an area near Mount Horeb in 2002.

That's despite increased hunting time, no bag limits, free tags, allowing landowners in the core CWD area to hunt on their own property for $2, economic incentives for hunters, food pantry donations, and tests of deer carcasses to assure hunters that the deer can be eaten. The DNR has spent $26.8 million trying to fight the disease.

"Wildlife disease researchers are telling us that if we are not able to aggressively snuff out disease sparks in the herd reduction zone, then we can't hope to contain the disease, much less eradicate it," Hassett said.

After the DNR obtains the results of testing during the fall deer hunting seasons, the agency will have five years of information about the disease and its spread. So in February 2007, Hassett will ask the board for approval to develop a new phase of CWD management, with the help of the public.

"We have learned that we need to do more to manage the disease, and we need stakeholders to help us decide what more DNR, landowners and hunters can/are willing to do," Hassett said.

The decision to change course may have been prodded by an ongoing investigation by the State Audit Bureau, ordered by the Legislature, on whether the DNR's efforts are working.

During the first three years of CWD, the number of deer in the core area in south-central Wisconsin was reduced, but last year that decline stopped.

Hassett said DNR staffers who met in September to assess the situation continued to agree on several assumptions:

• CWD is caused by proteins called prions and transmitted by contact between animals, though it may be transmitted indirectly by environmental contamination. Recent research found that it can be spread through saliva.

• High animal density and frequent contact help spread the disease.

• The disease was introduced into the state from elsewhere, and is not part of the native ecosystem.

• If uncontrolled, CWD may have a significant negative impact on the white-tailed deer population.

• CWD will not disappear spontaneously without management actions and restrictions on human activity.

The DNR staffers also noted that cooperation with landowners, hunters, partners and legislators is essential to control the disease.

"Hunter harvest alone will not be sufficient to control CWD. Non-traditional, and potentially, controversial methods will be required," Hassett said in his report.

Controversial methods that have been used to some extent so far include restriction of baiting and feeding deer, and using sharpshooters to reduce the deer herd. Visions of shooting from helicopters also has raised hackles. Baiting and feeding is still allowed in non-CWD areas.

"The best thing would be a statewide ban on baiting and feeding," said Tom Hauge, director of the wildlife program for the DNR.

"And if we can only go so far, with recreational hunting, what are the other tools that need to be thought about? The USDA runs a program that gives landowners financial incentives to keep deer at a low level on their property. We have used cash incentives for individual deer, but some people think they were insignificant."

Another possible option would be somehow dealing with the issue of refuges, where landowners won't allow deer to be killed on their property, he said.

Aggressive disease management in farmed deer and elk herds also will be essential, Hassett said.

Finally, neighboring states, especially Illinois, where the disease has been found along the Wisconsin border, also must control CWD.

The DNR still hopes to contain the disease in a limited area of the state and reduce its prevalence. But Hassett's report acknowledged that an alternative to be considered in a statewide discussion of CWD would be slowing the spread of the disease but accepting its inevitable spread across the state.

However, the DNR remains firm in its belief that doing nothing would be an abdication of the agency's responsibility, as would providing only CWD testing for hunters but no management of the disease.

Though a survey by a UW-Stevens Point professor found that 71 percent of hunters were willing to continue deer reduction efforts, it also found that there are a variety of social constraints to hunters' willingness to shoot more deer. Hunters just don't like killing deer they do not need to eat, Hassett said.

Therefore, he hopes to have a statewide dialogue on the issue, starting after the deer hunt disease data comes in.

"These will be challenging and frank discussions," Hassett said. But they are needed to try to stop negative impacts to the state's billion-dollar deer hunting industry and the ever-growing costs to pay for testing hunter-killed deer and disposing of diseased deer carcasses.

"I have heard people question whether Wisconsin has the collective resolve needed to even contain, let alone control or eradicate CWD," Hassett said. "I am not ready to accept their conclusion without first speaking with the citizens of our state."