By KEVIN WALKER Michigan Correspondent EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan hosted a two-day symposium earlier this month on chronic wasting disease (CWD), a disease afflicting deer, elk and moose – and that vexes officials even as they try to eradicate it. The State of the Science meeting took place in East Lansing on Oct. 3-4 and featured experts from all over the country. Officials from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and Natural Resources Commission (NRC) hosted the symposium. CWD is a fatal neurological disease that first emerged in Michigan’s free-ranging whitetail deer population in 2015. It appeared in a privately owned cervid herd in 2008 and resulted in a years-long feeding and baiting ban, which has since been lifted. “There was an impressive list of experts who are internationally known for their research on chronic wasting disease,” said Kelly Straka, a DNR wildlife veterinarian. “There were representatives from several universities, including Georgia, Colorado State, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan State.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of September CWD has been reported in free-ranging herds in at least 21 states in the continental United States, as well as two Canadian provinces. In addition, it has been reported in reindeer and moose in Norway and a small number of imported cases have been seen in South Korea. The disease has also been found in farmed deer and elk. The symposium brought together approximately 200 people from a variety of backgrounds, including speakers from state agencies representing Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Wyoming, as well as from the Quality Deer Management Assoc., the North American Deer Farmers Assoc., the U.S. Geological Survey and the USDA. Presentation topics included the first five decades of CWD; disease transmission and how it developed; maternal transmission; transmission by saliva, feces, urine and blood; social impacts of the disease; role of genetic influences; importance of applied research; perspective on captive cervids; and CWD management in various states. In Michigan a CWD workgroup was recently formed with members from the NRC as well as Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development. They were on hand to consider the latest CWD information. The workgroup was created to advise the NRC, DNR and other agencies on further steps that might be taken in Michigan to eliminate CWD in the state, or at least mitigate it. The group held its first meeting Oct. 5 and is scheduled to deliver its recommendations to the NRC and DNR by Dec. 31. Some sessions from the symposium were livestreamed and recorded. These will become available for public viewing in November on the DNR’s YouTube channel, and links to individual sessions will be posted on www.michigan.gov/cwd |
