Bluestem's a couple of weeks behind the curve with sharing news of this commentary. It's worth readers' time to check out Minnesota Passes Comprehensive Chronic Wasting Disease Legislation in Hunting Magazine.
Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee Chair Rick Hansen writes:
In January of 2018, for the first time, I couldn’t be sure that the deer I hunted were not infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD).
I brought two deer to a station set up by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, to have their lymph nodes tested for CWD. Even then, I had to wait two weeks for results, prolonging the uncertainty. For hunters across Minnesota and the U.S., this process has unfortunately become a needed extra step to enjoying hunting as a pastime.
This year the Minnesota Legislature made substantial progress in slowing the spread of chronic wasting disease, which threatens wild deer populations in our state and around the country. CWD is a fatal prion disease that affects Cervidae like deer, elk, reindeer, and moose and has been found in almost half of U.S. States.
Chronic wasting disease causes neurological damage leading to drastic weight loss, stumbling, and listlessness—the animal wastes away. There is currently no treatment or cure for the disease, which can be present in animals for over a year without developing symptoms. As CWD continues to spread through wild deer populations, it poses a massive threat to hunting in our country that we need to urgently address.
In Minnesota, CWD was found first in the farmed cervid industry and has subsequently spread to the wild white-tailed deer population. The Minnesota DNR found CWD-positive elk on an Aitkin County farm in 2002 and tested a CWD-positive deer in a mixed deer-elk farm in 2006. In 2010, the first wild CWD-positive white-tailed deer was discovered within two miles of a CWD-positive elk farm in Olmsted County, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture had determined to have a longstanding CWD infection in the herd.
Since the first confirmed case in wild deer, the DNR has tested tens of thousands of deer for the disease, tracking the spread of CWD and finding positive cases throughout our state. Surveillance efforts and research funding provided by the legislature have been critical in understanding how the disease is transferred from farmed Cervidae to wild deer and between wild deer herds.
In the past five years, legislation was repeatedly introduced to fund research, slow the spread of CWD, and impose restrictions on farmed cervids to prevent further outbreaks.
Efforts to stop the spread, including a vote for a moratorium on new deer farms and other measures, repeatedly failed in Minnesota due to opposition from the well-funded elk and deer farmers lobby and an unwillingness from Senate Republicans to take the steps that researchers in committee told us were needed. Despite evidence and multiple warnings showing links between the cervid farms and CWD spread, Republicans were unwilling to impose common-sense policies onto the small but powerful industry.
When Democrats took full control of the legislature earlier this year, many observers recognized the opportunity to make progress on previously stalled efforts, including chronic wasting disease. Serving as Chair of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, I worked alongside Representative Jamie Becker-Finn and Senator Kelly Morrison to introduce a comprehensive plan to combat CWD in our state.
Our legislation draws on research by the University of Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach (MNPRO) on how to best slow the spread of CWD. We finally passed a moratorium on new white-tail deer farms and placed movement restrictions on deer from herds with positive tests or from states or provinces where CWD has been detected. The bill includes provisions mandating depopulation of an infected herd within 30 days and ensures new deer are not allowed on the premises for ten years due to research showing that prions infected with CWD can be left behind in the soil itself. . . .
Read the rest at Hunting.
The article mentions work by the University of Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach (MNPRO) against the prion disorder. Just this afternoon, one of its leading scientists tweeted about the successful execution of a license agreement from the University of Minnesota to include portable diagnostic platforms and environmental surveillance options for prion and protein-misfolding diseases with Priogen Corp:
Absolutely thrilled to share this press release! We are providing exciting new options to help fight the spread of #CWD through our #startup @PriogenBio. https://t.co/lPRe53OE6C
— Peter Larsen (@peter_a_larsen) July 12, 2023
Here's hoping CWD is slowed.
Photo: Rep. Jamie Becker Finn (left) and Rep. Rick Hansen (right) with a DNR Conservation Officer (center) at a CWD response station in 2019. Source: Rep. Rick Hansen/Hunting Magazine.
Related posts
- Minnesota Reformer: Cost of managing Minnesota’s whitetails: 33 million bucks
- Session Daily: Bill targets deadly deer disease with tighter proposed restrictions on farms
- Omnibus environment bill aims to ‘correct past wrongs, prepare for future,’ committee chair says
- VIDEO: MN House environment committee passes most sweeping anti-CWD measure to date
- DNR: Chronic wasting disease suspected in a wild deer in Bemidji area for the first time
- MN Chronic Wasting Disease dilemma: should new deer farms be blocked? The old bought out?
- Chronic Wasting Disease: St. Louis County permanently bans new or expanded cervid farms .
- Todd Miller's deer farm was depopulated Tuesday,
- On Facebook, operator of CWD doomed Winona County deer farm wears Miller Scrap hat
- MN Board of Animal Health: CWD confirmed in quarantined Winona County captive deer herd
- Update: More on Miller family deer farm interests
- Senate DFL Leader Franzen raises conflict-of-interest concerns in Republican leader's role overturning bipartisan vote to protect wild deer
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