We've been posting about Minnesota's Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) slow-motion crisis for a while. We've not seen anyone nail the casual corruption that existed between the Board of Animal Health and the deer farming industry like Eric Atherton in his latest column for the Post Bulletin, Auditor's report puts BAH, deer farmers on hot seat.
Atherton provides a personal story that underscores the report in the column:
For years, as I reported on Minnesota’s battle against chronic wasting disease, my primary contact with the Board of Animal Health was Assistant Director Paul Anderson.
The BAH regulates Minnesota’s deer and elk farms, and Anderson’s answers to my questions were maddeningly consistent. Over and over, he told me the BAH had reliable inventories of every animal on every deer and elk farm in the state. He told me escapes were extremely rare, and that when they did happen, the animals seldom ventured far and were quickly recovered. And, most importantly, he assured me CWD testing was mandatory for any captive deer or elk more than 12 months old that died on captivity or was butchered.
Anderson retired last year, much to the delight of deer hunters who believed the BAH had far too cozy a relationship with the deer and elk farmers it is supposed to regulate.
And now we finally know the real truth — or something much closer to the truth — about the BAH’s oversight of Minnesota’s 398 cervidae farms.
Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor on Friday released a 51-page report that should be required reading for anyone who cares about the health of our state’s wild deer herd. . . .
Here's the report:
Board of Animal Health’s Oversight of Deer and Elk Farms uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
Atherton concludes:
I could go on and on, but my favorite “smoking gun” is something that’s peppered throughout the report. Since last year’s April announcement that BAH would be audited, the agency’s field staff have become much more diligent and thorough in their inspections of deer farms and elk farms. Reports of inventory inaccuracies jumped from 15 in 2016 to 65 last year. More fencing violations were discovered. Reports of inadequate ear-tagging tripled.
Granted, it’s human nature for people to work harder when they know they’re being inspected, but the auditor’s report included the following statement: “The former assistant director responsible for the deer and elk program (Anderson) ran the program from the early 2000s until he retired in June 2017. The new assistant director with responsibility for the program has implemented a number of changes to the board’s oversight of deer and elk farms since assuming her position.” . . .
My conclusion? It’s great that the BAH is trying to close the barn door on Minnesota’s farmed cervidae industry, but it appears that the door had been wide open for years. Heaven knows how big a price Minnesota will pay for that sloppiness.
Go read the column--and circulate it to friends. Atherton's tale of regulatory capture of a designated staff member by the farmed cervidae industry is a must-read.
Photo: A whitetail suffering from Chronic Wasting Disease.
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