Group calls for deer cull
posted on 8/5/2004 10:37:18 AM

August 5, 2004
The Leader-Post (Regina)
A1 / Front
Dan Kinvig
SASKATOON -- Francois Messier, head of the biology department at the University of Saskatchewan and chair of a seven-member panel consisting of top scientists from Canada, the United States, Australia and Belgium, was cited as telling reporters Wednesday that Canada needs to act immediately to stem the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) among wild deer and elk before it becomes a national crisis, adding, "If nothing is done and we look 100 years from now, I would predict that the entire (country of) Canada will have the disease in the wild deer population."
The story says that in its final report, the panel called on Canada to implement a federal framework for dealing with CWD, noting that after CWD was first detected on game farms in 1996, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency spent millions to kill more than 8,000 animals on 43 farms in Saskatchewan and Alberta. But there is no similar national policy to combat the disease in the wild.

Ted Leighton, executive director of the Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre (CCWHC), which put together the panel, was quoted as saying, "That is our major impediment to rational management of this disease. The expectation, for example, that the taxpayers of Saskatchewan can afford to manage this disease on behalf of all of Canada is very unrealistic."

Saskatchewan is the only province in which CWD has been detected in the wild. Since 2000, 34 CWD-infected deer have been found in three distinct areas, including 29 in the Saskatchewan Landing area north of Swift Current.

The other five were found in areas northeast and south of Lloydminster.

In its recommendations, the panel endorses thinning the deer and elk populations in the three CWD hot zones to slow the spread of the disease. They recommend a target density of one cervid per square kilometre, which would represent a massive cull -- some hot zones have between five and 10 animals per square kilometre.


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