CWD in Okla
Whitetail Deer
I just received an email from Wildlife department (I'm not special, just on their mailing list) that an elk from a farmed herd in Lincoln county has tested positive for CWD.
See if this works: An elk from a farmed herd in Lincoln County has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD), according to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food & Forestry (ODAFF) and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
The 2-year-old bull elk died as the result of an injury. The elk was tested through routine surveillance in compliance with the breeding facility’s Certified Herd Plan.
CWD is a fatal neurological disease that affects the brains of elk, deer and other cervid species. No vaccine or treatment for the disease exists. Importantly, no health risk to humans or non-cervid livestock has been documented.
ODAFF has quarantined the farmed breeding facility, and the Wildlife Department will be testing wild deer in the area near the facility for the presence of CWD. The adjacent commercial hunting area associated with this facility has been quarantined as well. The State Veterinarian has issued a stop-movement order for any intrastate cervid transport for 30 days in order to assess the situation.
This is the second confirmed case of CWD in Oklahoma. The first case was confirmed in a farmed elk herd in Oklahoma County in 1998. Surveillance testing around that area since then has not revealed any deer with the disease.
My question is whether the two elk were born and raised in those enclosures, or brought in from elsewhere.
Good question. I just sent an email to the Ag and Wildlife representatives on the email and asked. I'll keep you posted.
I saw that on my email this morning sounds like they were on top of it pretty quick. Good question Jaq be interesting to know.
Since the only two positive tests for CWD in Oklahoma in the past 20+ years have been elk on game farms why haven't our legislators considered shutting down game farms completely?
Oh yeah.....money.
I got your answer Lou from State Veterinarian
The elk was born and raised on the farm.
Hmmm, so that means either another elk in that pen is positive, or was and the prions are still in the soil, or they had a spontaneous protein folding like they suspect happened in Norway to infect that isolated reindeer herd.
Either way, the prions are there in the soil now.....
I'm betting on more positive tests from other penned elk. The elk that tested positive died from an injury, not CWD. But when any penned game animal dies it has to be tested and that's how they found it. Regardless, it's in the soil. The last time this happened (in the 90's, also elk) they destroyed the entire penned herd and I think closed the operation. It seems that taking down the high fence would be a bad idea but they have not found any positive deer since although I don't know how hard anyone is looking. Getting a deer tested in Oklahoma is not a simple procedure.
Imagine your worries if your hunting property was next door to that or even a few miles away. That's one BIG reason I'm opposed to high fenced operations.
They should kill all the elk and deer in the entire state....sorry that was a kneejerk reaction.
U must keep in mind that most of the people that legislate and govern this state are much more in favor of individual property rights and canned hunts than they are with protecting the greater good of the wildlife. This is very evident in the Ludacris bills that were drafted by these legislators. odwc will work hard to protect our herd if the legislators will stay out of it.
Do we know if testing was going on previous to this confirmation? If not, how do we know infected free range deer around the facility didn't contaminate the elk?
JL, that question has been asked for the past 50 years here in the "hot zone". No one knows for sure.
Complex issue...confusing.
Will they kill all the other elk in the facility? You cant test a live animal for cwd right? I would think all the other animals would be tested.
There is a test available now that does not involve killing the animal
Doesn't matter whether they live test because the prions are already in the soil in the pens. And other elk have certainly been exposed by feces, urine, and saliva whether they are symptomatic or not. May take years for it to show up in an individual animal after exposure.
No matter what happens now, that "farm" is a CWD hotspot forever. When the wind blows, dried soil and poop particles will blow out, and Pandora's Box will be open.
Not to worry too much, fellas. Here where we live the deer population was doing fine with CWD until CDOW tried to kill them all. Except they did nothing about the lions and bears, so it has taken decades for the deer to rebound from the slaughter. We now have 14,000 deer back in the DAU and growing. CWD is not the horrible disaster alarmists make it out to be.
Man do I appreciate this thread!
Montana, probably the most "fair chase" minded state we have, banned commercial elk/deer operations via an initiative. Got rid of the pet elk shooting adjacent to my property.
Any chance they could do the same??
Good stuff thanks for spreading the word. Especially in light of legislation on its way to be signed by the governor that would inhibit the wildlife department’s hand in reducing CWD risk
DO NOT LET YOUR DNR go on a BRAI FART idea to elimination ALL the deer! It Can't be stopped, its Mother Natures way of handling the OVER POPULATION of your deer! Here in WI the DNR has SCREWED UP OUR SEASONS and KILLED a huge number of deer for no REASON! Let mother Nature runs it course, KEEP OUT THOSE WHO THINK "We know what's BEST" ! They DON"T! I've watched our DNR for the last 20 yrs. find NOTHING and PROVE NOTHING, other than it dose kill deer! DUH! I've eaten 5 positive animals since they've started testing and I am still here! So go figure! Just my $.02!
Oklahoma legislators have a history of PRO-high fence, farmed game. Their grip and grin pics in full camo get them NRA points. Michael is correct. This current legislature has passed bills from one senator that handcuffs the wildlife department. Some of the dead bills were even more ridiculous.
I bet the Ag Dept destroys all the animals in that farm just as they did in the late 90's. They will test everything there to justify the financial loss for the owner but the damage is done since the high fence comes down.
bobbinhood: our wildlife department is not the problem. It's the politicians.
I don’t have much faith in our wildlife dept but I do know they hire scientists so that does help. I’ve witnessed wildlife officials lie on many occasions here.
Wisconsin and other states have shown that eliminating deer populations doesn’t fix the problem that is for sure
I agree Michael but I feel better about the wildlife department and biologists/veterinarians looking out for the hunting public's interest and the overall deer herd rather than the politicians who are more interested in individual game farmers and importing elk from Canada!
If the only two cases of cwd in Oklahoma both occurred on game farms, could it be possible that game farms are a bad idea??? Why should a fake-hunting business put the entire state's deer herd at risk? (I'm not sure I believe there are not deer with CWD in Oklahoma. We just don't test enough)
This operation has two locations. One is only separated from where I hunt deer by a dirt road, I think that is where they bring clients to hunt. The other is a few miles away where they breed them. Any idea which location it was found at?
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2020 Oklahoma Proper Carcass Disposal Cervid Importation with 6 cases of CWD TSE Prion documented to date in Captive Cervid https://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2020/11/oklahoma-proper-carcass-disposal-cervid.html
kind regards, terry
From the state that probably has more high fences than any other, I would first like to say that I’m against game animals traveling back and forth between facilities, much less state to state. That said, the high fences will never come down here, too much money to be made and private property rights are a big thing, which is as it should be. I’ve hunted in high fences from 16,000 acres to 200 acres. The former was a hunt, the latter was simply grocery shopping for axis meat.
All that said, while CWD used to concern me quite a bit, I’ve come to believe what Jaquomo pointed out, I think now that it just isn’t that big of a deal if your Game & Fish folks don’t go nuts. Certainly nobody wants it in their neighborhood, but it’s here and we’re gonna have to live with it.
Knee jerk reactions from G & F depts are usually much worse than a few cases of CWD. There is no putting toothpaste back in the tube. It's around, and has been. Talk to an outfitter (wild, not fenced animals) and ask them what their bigger concern is....EHD or CWD? To a man, they will tell you EHD. Like one in Iowa said to me, "I can take you out and show you 50 deer that died from EHD. I can't find one that died from CWD."
Of course we'd all rather have none than a little.... but that's not reality. Some G&F departments (Wisconsin comes immediately to mind) decided decimating the deer herd was the best course of action. How'd that work out? Deer herd in shambles, and guess what? They still have CWD.
Every state has CWD. Its been around a long time. I dont like how people want to use it to push their agenda. Untill you band salt licks used by cattle, witch will never and can't happen, its pointless.
CWD is chronic worrying disease. NO, Zero, evidence it has done any long term damage to any herd of big game animals.
^^^^^ Chronic Worrying Disease^^^^ good one :-)
Cwd has really hit Dallas and Hartley counties hard in the tx panhandle which is right below the ok panhandle so it's a safe bet there's cwd in ok already,at least in the panhandle. I have watched the deer numbers fall on my hunting places over the last few years
That's Dallam county stupid spell check
