The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) is reporting 28 new cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) from voluntary sampling stations run by the ommission during the opening weekend of modern gun season, Nov. 12-13. The samples were collected from 25 sites in the CWD Management Zone in North Arkansas.
CWD is a contagious neurological disease affecting deer, elk, and moose. It causes a characteristic spongy degeneration of the brains of infected animals, resulting in emaciation, abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death. It belongs to a group of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Within this family of diseases, there are several variants that affect domestic animals, including scrapie in sheep and mad cow disease in cattle. There have been rare cases in humans, mostly associated with an outbreak of mad cow disease in Britain that peaked in the 1990s.
The following counties had deer that tested positive for the condition:
• Carroll - eight deer
• Marion - two deer
• Newton- fourteen deer
• Pope - two deer
• Searcy - one deer
• Yell - one deer
Marion and Yell counties were the only new counties to have a CWD-positve case, and Searcy County was just added to the list a week ago on confirmation of a positive elk sample for 2016. Marion County is adjacent to Boone County, which had already reported cases of the disease, so that wasn’t a big surprise.
The Yell County case is brand new, and the first case that has been found on the south side of the Arkansas River. Many people were hoping the river would form a natural barrier to the spread of the disease. “The Yell County one is a little disheartening,” said Cory Gray, AGFC deer program coordinator. “It’s our southernmost case yet, and was found on the south side of the Arkansas River.”
Hunters submitted 535 samples during the two-day period. This was not as many samples as biologists were hoping to get, but Gray said he hopes that means hunters still consider deer hunting a priority over any disease concern. So far, license sales and overall harvest have reinforced that thought with biologists.
“Many states with CWD have seen a drop in hunting license sales and deer harvest following the detection of the disease, but we aren’t currently seeing a decrease,” Gray said. “Our hunting license sales are on the same trend as before CWD was detected, and the harvest has actually increased in many of the CWD positive counties compared to the previous five years.” This could be related to more liberalized seasons in the management zone to help control the spread of the disease.
An additional 411 samples taken from roadkills and deer that were reported sick have also been sent for testing, bringing the total number of samples since March to well over 3,000, according to the press release. Biologists will continue to sample deer and elk that are reported sick, and roadkill samples will also be collected, but Gray said the effort will be diminished from the current round-the-clock effort.
“We can’t thank the public enough for helping us locate roadkills when they saw them, and we still want people to report any sick deer they see to us through our radio room (800-482-9262),” Gray said.