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'Culling' doesn't reduce wasting Division of Wildlife to stop random killing
Boulder Daily Camera Boulder, Colorado
By
Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer Killing random deer that are in "hot spots" for chronic-wasting disease doesn't appear to reduce the prevalence of the malady, and state wildlife managers will stop the practice this year, an official said Friday. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has spent the last four years "culling," or killing, randomly selected deer in herds suffering from chronic-wasting disease across the state. Last year, the division received permission from Boulder County to kill deer on Rabbit Mountain. The theory behind culling was fairly straightforward: Deer communicate the disease to one another, so thinning the population of herds should keep the disease from spreading. The affliction, similar to mad cow disease, creates sponge-like holes in the animals' brains that cause them to lose weight, act strangely and then die. Culling also is simpler than just killing infected deer, because testing live animals for the disease requires taking a tonsil biopsy — which isn't a quick or easy procedure. But Fred Quartarone, the Division of Wildlife field coordinator for chronic-wasting disease, said there's just one problem with the theory: It doesn't appear to hold up in the field. The division chose 16 test sites. In eight of those sites, they used random culling to thin deer populations. In the other half, they didn't. "When everything was said and done, in about half the areas (that were culled) prevalence went down slightly, and in other areas, it went up slightly," Quartarone said. "There was no discernible change either way." Quartarone said the division this year won't cull or issue special hunting licenses to target infected animals as it has in the past. But, he said, work still continues to understand the disease and how it spreads. A partnership between the division and Boulder's Open Space and Mountain Parks Department to study infected animals without killing them will continue, he said. Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor said that while county officials have let the state proceed with culling in the past, they have been asking for data to show whether it works. "I think that our concern was simply wanting to make sure that whatever approach that was going to be taken on county open space really made sense in terms of the health of the deer population," he said. Contact Camera Staff Writer Ryan Morgan at (303) 473-1333 or morganr@dailycamera.com. Copyright 2006, DailyCamera. All Rights Reserved. http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/state_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2419_4573373,00.html
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