- Hello, Jeff - We have been talking for over 10 years
about Chronic Wasting Disease and the fact that slaughtering animals DOES
NOT AND WILL NOT CONTAIN THE SPREAD OF CWD - Mad Cow in deer, elk and moose.
-
- You would think that the DEC and other governmental agencies
and scientists would realize that CWD is now endemic IN THE ENVIRONMENT.
-
-
- Killing off the deer, elk and moose - animals that are
susceptible to CWD - does NOTHING to contain the spread of the disease.
-
- Shooting the animals simply adds to the spread of the
disease by putting more blood and bodily fluids into the environment.
-
- It is so sad that in this day and age of technology,
all we can do is to resort to primitive method of slaughtering animals,
and for what? IT DOESN'T WORK!
-
- Killing of these animals saddens me and it is all in
vain.
-
- Patty
-
- CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE, CERVIDS - USA (06): (MINNESOTA)
CULLING
-
-
- Date: Tue 22 Sep 2009
- Source: ScrippsNews, Minneapolis Star Tribune report
- http://scrippsnews.com/content/sharpshooters-kill-hundreds-
- elk-contain-dangerous-wasting-disease
-
- Sharpshooters kill hundreds of elk to contain dangerous
wasting disease
-
- Federal sharpshooters have begun destroying a herd of
about 700 elk on a farm in southeastern Minnesota where chronic wasting
disease (CWD) was discovered this year [2009].
-
- Sharpshooters with the US Department of Agriculture's
(USDA) Wildlife Services shot elk Friday [18 Sep 2009] and Monday [21 Sep
2009] on the farm near Pine Island, after the federal agency reached an
agreement with the herd's owners concerning compensation and cleanup. A
cow elk at Elk Farm LLC -- the largest such farm in the state -- was found
to have the disease in January [2009], and the herd has been quarantined
since.
-
- The 1300-acre [526 ha] farm was purchased in 2006 by
Tower Investments of Woodland, California, and is part of 2300 acres [931
ha] the firm plans to develop north of Rochester for a bioscience research
and manufacturing center called Elk Run. It would include 15 to 25 bioscience
companies, as well as offices, shops and homes, officials say.
-
- "This is very sad situation for all of us at Tower
Investments," project manager Geoff Griffin said. "But it's totally
out of our control. The good thing is, it does not affect our development."
-
- All of the elk will be killed over the next 10 days or
so and tested for the fatal brain disease, then will be disposed of, said
Paul Anderson, assistant director of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.
None of the meat can be salvaged for human consumption.
-
- "There's no evidence that it causes disease in people,"
Anderson said, "but with a known infected herd, we just would not
take any risks with humans."
-
- Tower Investments will be compensated for the animals
by the Agriculture Department. Federal officials said Monday [21 Sep 2009]
that they're unsure what the total cost will be.
-
- To prevent the spread of CWD to wild deer, the top couple
of inches of topsoil on the farm will be removed and stored behind a fenced
area for 5 years, Anderson said. Tower Investments will pay for that, he
said. "Normally, we'd require that fences stay up (on a farm) for
5 years," Anderson said, "but because of the need to develop
that land, they will remove the soil and pile it up behind a fence for
5 years."
-
- The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) also plans
to test 3000 deer for CWD that are expected to be killed by hunters this
fall in southeastern Minnesota. The testing, which will cost more than
USD 200 000, was prompted by the presence of CWD at the Pine Island elk
farm and by the proximity of deer in the region to Wisconsin, where wild
deer have been infected with CWD, said Ed Boggess, DNR policy section chief.
The US Department of Agriculture will pay about USD 70 000 of the cost,
he said.
-
- Though no elk have escaped from the Pine Island farm,
Anderson said 2 wild deer somehow managed to get inside the fenced farm
and were destroyed. Since the disease was first found in the state in a
captive elk herd in 2002, DNR officials have been concerned that it could
spread to Minnesota's approximately 1 million wild deer. There are about
20 000 captive deer and elk in the state, and the disease can be spread
through nose-to-nose contact. The infected elk at Pine Island was the 6th
captive deer or elk in the state found to have CWD.
-
- The DNR has tested more than 30 000 wild deer, and none
has tested positive.
- Byline: Doug Smith
-
- --
- Communicated by:
- ProMED-mail Rapporteur George Robertson
-
- Chronic wasting disease is a transmissible spongiform
encephalopathy disease; the same family of diseases as bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease, and scrapie affecting sheep. While
the family of diseases generally produces wasting of the affected animal
and often neurological signs such as stumbling, CWD has never shown to
transmit to humans and has been around since at least the 1950s, most especially
in the western mountain region of the US. - Mod.TG
-
- The Midwestern state of Minnesota can be located on the
HealthMap/ProMED-mail interactive map of the US at http://healthmap.org/r/00Q-
- Sr.Tech.Ed.MJ
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also
my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai
sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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