It may be a while before we feel the ripples – and we hope we never will – but Michigan’s suffered a severe blow this week. For the first time in the state, a free-ranging deer was found to be suffering from chronic wasting disease.
Chronic wasting disease among deer is the same sort of disease as mad cow disease. Rogue proteins attack the animal’s brain and eventually and always kill it. It’s highly infectious and all but unstoppable. It’s been blamed for devastating deer and elk herds in the Mountain West, parts of Canada, Wisconsin and New Mexico.
Smaller outbreaks have occurred in half a dozen other states.
State officials announced yesterday that a single deer in Ingham County’s Meridian Township has tested positive for the disease. A homeowner called police because the deer was hanging around his house and acting strangely.
The Department of Natural Resources is implementing a response plan developed in 2002. It has a 13-year-old response plan because it all but knew this was coming. The only way for chronic wasting disease to get to Michigan is by some person bringing an infected deer to Michigan.
The state has controls on the movement and importation of captive deer and elk. But rules and regulations can only be as effective as the consciences of those involved in the business of buying, selling and hunting captive deer. The DNR probably should have outlawed the captive deer trade when we had our first scare in 2008, when a deer from a privately owned Kent County facility tested positive.
Lobbyists objected, and the bomb was allowed to continue ticking. It hasn’t gone off yet, but smoke is showing.
What happens when it goes off?
A Kentucky study predicted that a widespread outbreak in that state would cost 15 percent to 20 percent of its hunting-related economic benefits and lead to the loss of about 1,500 jobs directly and indirectly related to deer hunting.
Deer hunting is bigger here, and worth more than $2 billion to Michigan’s economy.
Fifteen percent is hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs.
It may be too late, but the state must say no to the captive deer lobby.
