Becky Snyder Posted: Mon Jul 21 08 1:50 p.m. Post subject: An Update from the Game Commission Wildlife Veterinarian An Update from the Game Commission Wildlife Veterinarian I sincerely hope that everyone who mounted an elk for a Pennsylvania hunter this past year is a member of this organization so they see this issue. Speaking for the Executive Director, the deer and elk teams, and myself, we want to say thank you. You may recall that in the 2006 season we only recovered 80% of the heads that went to taxidermists, which was a decline of 19% over the year before. I'm pleased to say that in 2007 we received 100% of the heads, and they came in good shape. Hopefully those of you who do heads next year will remember how important it is to get them caped and onto the UPS truck so we can get a useable sample. If you need assistance just call either the Wildlife Management Supervisor or myself in your region and we will make it as easy as possible to get the sample. I should mention that last year a couple of the taxidermists I spoke with did not know that they can become Certified CWD Technicians (CCT) so the can take the samples themselves, not just for us but for propagators and their clients as well. The process involves coming to one of the PGC region offices during the 4 days that we are extracting samples from hunter-killed deer. There you will get training and a chance to extract some samples until you are comfortable with the process. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA), which has responsibility for programs involving farmed cervids, conducts the training. For more information and to express your interest, you should contact your regional PDA office. If you know someone who is not a member of PTA, and who did a hunter-killed elk last year, please pass along our thanks. Taxidermists are an important part of our sampling process. Along those same lines, I want to strongly recommend that everyone who handles animals from CWD positive states become familiar with Pennsylvania's CWD Parts Ban which can be found either in the Digest or it can be seen at http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=458&q=163873. Everyone probably knows that the only state in the country that seems to have stopped CWD in its tracks is New York. Their experience began with an elk head that was apparently infected with CWD prions, which then, through a remarkable set of circumstances, contaminated the environment and infected local NY deer. Fortunately, NY got on the situation like a duck on a Junebug and they haven't found any new cases for 2 years now. If you find yourself with some potentially dangerous material as is laid out in the ban the next step is to call either your local WCO, your region office, or me. If you have regular clients or friends that go west and hunt in CWD positive states, help us make sure they know about the ban, too. Our position on this is not to try to make anyone's life difficult, but rather to prevent the arrival of, or track down and account for all of the potentially contaminated material that does come, so we can prevent the environmental contamination from which there is such a poor chance of recovery. So you can see that taxidermists are not only important for detection, but for our all-important prevention efforts as well. I'd like to share another bit of CWD information with you. Earlier this spring I got a call from a very worried hunter in the Northeast. He wanted me to know that CWD was killing deer where he hunts. He was calling well after the season, but reported finding 2 large bucks dead with no apparent injury when he was hunting in a particular area. Then, as if to confirm that his worries had substance, he said that a local taxidermist had also confirmed that he had received 2 other bucks that died from CWD. I called the taxidermist, who is not a member of PTA, who confirmed that he was indeed sure that these 2 deer had CWD because they looked like a picture he had seen at an informational meeting put on by the PGC. I'm not at all sure I convinced him, but I did my best to get across that CWD is a post-mortem diagnosis. Deer dying or dead that have CWD may have a number of other diseases or conditions, one or more of which may even be the reason for their death. The prions that are thought to be responsible for CWD do indeed set the stage for wasting and death, but by debilitating the animal they also open the door for other more common conditions such as pneumonia, brain abscess syndrome, injury, parasitism, and death by a predator or automobile strike, to name a few. So at least in that case a taxidermist was looked to as a source of credible information, and instead he made matters worse. If that happens to you in the future I hope you will remember how easy it is to spread panic in the land. Armed with what you now know you can help quell this kind of rumor. I should add that, if you can't find an answer to a wildlife disease question on our website or sites like www.cwd-info.org I am always available to try to answer your questions. Walter O. Cottrell, MS, DVM PGC Wildlife Veterinarian Animal Diagnostic Laboratory Orchard Rd. University Park, PA 16802 814.863.8370 wcottrell@state.pa.us

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Monday, July 21, 2008