AR-News: AR NEWS: States put up defenses against CWD

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http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1617506,00.html





By Theo Stein, Denver Post Environment Writer
Biologists in 49 states will test hunter-killed deer and elk this fall for 
chronic wasting disease, evidence that a disease once considered a quirky 
scourge of Colorado wildlife has become a major national concern. 
Last year, officials in Wisconsin, Illinois, Utah and New Mexico discovered 
that some of their deer had the fatal neurologic disease, which makes its 
victims grow thin and die as it eats holes in their brains.
But infection rates remain highest along the borderlands of Colorado and 
Wyoming, where scientists are pursuing cutting-edge research aimed at prying free 
the most basic secrets of the disease.
On the Laramie campus of the University of Wyoming, a team of veterinarians, 
toxicologists and molecular chemists is trying to develop a test to identify 
the strange, infectious prion protein thought to cause the disease.
"We think prions are probably present in the environment at extremely low 
levels," said University of Wyoming veterinary pathologist Elizabeth Williams.
"They're not like bacteria or virus or fungus where you can grow them up and 
identify them," she said. "You have to look for individual molecules in ... 
dirt, soil, water and whatever."
Prions occur naturally in mammals and birds but turn destructive when they 
become folded in a way that changes how they react with other brain chemicals.
Prions don't replicate themselves like bacteria or viruses, but recruit other 
prions to take on their abnormal shape in ways researchers don't yet 
understand.
As the infectious prions accumulate in animal brains, they create microscopic 
holes that interfere with normal behavior, turning victims into drooling, 
disoriented wrecks. Researchers believe infected animals can be contagious for 
years before symptoms become apparent.
The three-phase study, funded by a $2.4 million Department of Defense grant, 
will try to confirm theories that infected deer and elk shed prions in saliva, 
urine and feces. The study also hopes to demonstrate how prions are taken up 
by other animals.
"Maybe we can find ways to inactivate it in the environment," Williams said.
While there's no evidence CWD prions have ever caused a human illness, 
test-tube studies show that they can recruit naturally occurring human prions to 
take on their malformed shape.
And CWD is a relative of mad cow disease, whose human form, variant 
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, has killed more than 100 Britons and Europeans who ate 
infected beef.
The studies are key to officials in Colorado, who fear that CWD will scare 
off out-of-state hunters whose license fees fund wildlife programs.
Before last rifle season ends early next year, roughly a quarter-million 
big-game hunters will have taken to the field in Colorado, including more than 
100,000 nonresidents.
Colorado collects $42 million annually from the sale of hunting licenses, by 
far the most of any state. All told, hunters contribute half a billion dollars 
to the economy each fall through the purchase of gas, food supplies and 
taxidermy services.
"Colorado is big-game-hunting central," Division of Wildlife spokesman Todd 
Malmsbury said.
One reason CWD scares biologists so much is that it has never been controlled 
in free-ranging herds. Computer models suggest CWD can significantly reduce 
or even wipe out local deer and elk populations. One recent, five-year study of 
captive mule deer in Fort Collins showed just how ferocious the disease can 
be - 17 of 18 deer became infected and died of the disease.
Last year was a watershed for CWD awareness. A Wisconsin outbreak prompted 19 
states to undertake CWD testing for the first time. This year, only Hawaii, 
which has no deer, will forgo testing.
Last year's testing showed CWD had established footholds in Illinois and 
Utah, but researchers were relieved to find it hadn't spread further, said Bruce 
Morrison, Nebraska's assistant administrator for Game and Parks.
"There were over 150,000 tests run throughout the country, and we didn't find 
it in the East or the far West," said Morrison, who chairs the National CWD 
Plan Implementation Team, an interagency, multi-state group coordinating the 
fight against the disease.
Continued testing is vital to chart CWD's spread, he said.
"In the long term, states are going to have to redirect significant funding" 
to testing, he said.
States are reacting with other programs, too.
Twenty-two states are developing new regulations to control the movement of 
live or dead deer and elk or are strengthening existing rules. Thirty-six 
states now test farm-raised deer and elk; eight more are developing testing 
programs for those animals.
Twenty-sixstates have banned all imports of live deer and elk. Another 14 
states and one Canadian province have restricted the importation of deer and elk 
parts from areas known to be infected.
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