Panel urged changes in Wisconsin deer program

Wisconsin should adopt a program used by 20 other states to help manage its deer herds, modify but not discontinue its use of the Sex-Age-Kill population model and take a more passive approach to managing chronic wasting disease in the southern part of the state.

These were among the leading recommendations of the nine-month review of the state's deer management practices by the Wisconsin white-tailed deer trustee and committee.

"It's about improving the relationship between the DNR and hunters and landowners," said James Kroll, named deer trustee in October by Gov. Scott Walker. "It boils down to getting people working together for the betterment of the hunting tradition, the deer herd and the habitat."

Responding to hunter complaints over declining deer harvests and sightings, Walker used his executive power to create the deer trustee position to conduct an "independent, science-based review" of the state's deer management program.

The review was considered by many as a shot across the bow to Department of Natural Resources wildlife managers, who encountered increasing criticism for their efforts to reduce deer numbers to legislatively approved population goals.

The biggest threat to the deer population in the USA comes from Chronic Wasting Disease. Thirty some years ago CWD was isolated to the Rocky Mountain states. Then some idiot Wisconsin wild game farm brought in a couple of infected animals. Several of the infected animals escaped and they passed the disease on to the previously uninfected local deer herds. Thanks to human greed and stupidity, CWD was allowed to expand its reach by over 950 miles East.

Since the time CWD was identified in NE Wisconsin, its effects have been like a stone thrown into a pond, expanding like ripples. Wisconsin's number of infected counties have climbed. The disease has migrated south to IL and effected the NE quadrant of the state. To their credits, the state Departments of Natural Resources or Conservation have collaborated to fight CWD, but there remains no “magic bullet” to slay this beast. Meanwhile, the cancer continues to grow and spread.

A few important points. CWD, like “Mad Cow” disease (BSE), is caused by prions.

The Center for Disease Control Atlanta says that, “as a precaution, hunters should avoid eating deer and elk tissues known to harbor the CWD agent (e.g., brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils, lymph nodes) from areas where CWD has been identified.”

Prions are very weird things, made of “mis-folded” proteins.

To explain, all organic life is made of proteins, extremely complicated things that can be described by this analogy.

“Imagine you have a thousand springs of different kinds. Some are tension springs and some are compression springs, and they are all connected end to end except those on the edges. You can lay them all out like a blanket, but when you let go, they all fold up into a big ball.

“Proteins are like this, and to function they must fold up into a ball. But this folding up process happens *exactly* the same way every time.”

Again, prions are proteins that are mis-folded. However, proteins have some way of “teaching” similar proteins how to fold properly. Or improperly.

So when a mis-folded prion is introduced to a group of similar, properly folded proteins, it *may* (or may not) teach them to fold improperly. And if it does, it causes a prion disease. Incurable and lethal.

But here’s a zinger. Proteins frequently screw up and fold improperly, but then are destroyed by the body. But for some reason, infectious prions are *not* destroyed by the body.

And here’s another zinger. Prions are ridiculously hard to destroy by ordinary sterilization. 134°C (274°F) for 18 minutes in a pressurized steam autoclave may not be enough to deactivate prions.

The World Health Organization recommends procedures for the sterilization of all heat-resistant surgical instruments to ensure that they are not contaminated with prions. These involve immersion in lye or sodium hypochlorite solutions for a half hour to an hour, followed by extreme autoclaving, washing and autoclaving again.

In the vast majority of cases, it is just easier to dispose of anything that might be contaminated as biohazard waste.

In nature, all the feces of an infected animal takes the prions to ground where they get on food plants eaten by other animals and remains for many years. So once an area is contaminated, it stays that way for who knows how long.

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