Town's CWD concerns rise

Sundance is implementing a year-round deer cull in response to evidence that chronic wasting disease (CWD) may be much more prevalent than previously thought in the vicinity of the city.

Game Warden Nate Holst attended last week’s meeting of the city council to present a proposal from Wyoming Game & Fish.

Most years, explained Holst, the city applies for a license to cull a certain number of deer. This year, the quota was 50 deer, which was subsequently filled.

However, seven of those 50 deer tested positive for CWD.

This could be a reason for concern, Holst told the council. The Black Hills region used to sit at around a 2-3% rate of CWD (in other words, it was estimated that two out of every hundred deer was infected). At this time, the Black Hills region sits at 7%.

Seven of 50 deer is, of course, double this percentage – it puts Sundance at a 14% prevalence rate.

For context, Holst informed the council that he used to be the game warden for Wheatland, where CWD was first detected in Wyoming. The prevalence rate in Wheatland, he said, was 25%.

Sundance’s statistic is not scary, Holst said, but, “It’s something to definitely note and pay attention to.”

On that basis, and with the blessing of his supervisor, he suggested a change to the culling policy. Instead of a license that permits the take of 50 animals during a certain period, he said that Wyoming Game & Fish is willing to issue a year-round license that allows for up to 100 deer.

Making it good at all times, he said, would allow Game & Fish and the city to “have it in our back pocket” in case the need to cull arises.

The council was on board with the suggestion, with the only sticking point being that Nick Kaminski is no longer available to undertake the cull. Kaminski’s Grainland Trapping has been granted the contract over the past two years, but is no longer available.

Stating that he would like to “get this thing cleared up before we have a problem,” Mayor Paul Brooks said that it shouldn’t be of concern that the council will need to change the contract terms to account for the increase in animals to be taken.

“We have an opportunity to get ahead of this and I don’t want money to be a factor,” he said, noting that a serious cutback in numbers can often be the only way to stop a disease in its tracks.

On hearing a couple of suggestions of individuals who would likely be interested in taking on the contract, the council directed Public Works Director Mac Erickson and Clerk-Treasurer Theresa Curren to move forward with preparing paperwork, liaising with Game & Fish and negotiating with a new contractor.

A motion was passed to offer the new contractor the same contract as was approved for Kaminski – with an increase to account for the number of deer to be taken – and the council granted permission for Brooks to sign the agreement with Game & Fish.

Chronic Wasting Disease

CWD, sometimes called “zombie deer disease” affects deer, elk and moose and is caused by abnormally folded proteins called “prions”. These cause damage to normal prion proteins in tissues throughout the animal’s body, but most often in the brain and spinal cord.

CWD is always fatal.

Deer and elk are unlikely to display symptoms at first, because the incubation period can be anything from 18 to 24 months. However, the advanced stages of CWD can cause droopy ears, a lack of energy, a lack of gloss to the coat and lethargy, as well as emaciation in extreme cases.

CWD has been on the rise in other parts of Wyoming for a number of years. In areas such as Yellowstone National Park, significant growth was detected soon after the disease first appeared.

As of last June, CDC statistics marked Wyoming as one of the hardest-hit states in the nation in terms of detection of CWD. As of June, 2022, it had been detected in all but one county – Uinta, in the southwest corner.

For a while, however, wildlife biologists were left scratching their heads because the Black Hills seemed unique – despite having relatively dense populations of deer and elk, detection of CWD in the early 2000s did not lead to any significant outbreak.

Prevalence began to rise in northeast Wyoming in 2020. Game & Fish announced that year that it had been confirmed in a bull elk in Crook County, and in 2022 concentrated on the Black Hills for its fall sampling program.

CWD is known to affect deer, elk, reindeer, sitka deer and moose. It is a fatal disease with no known treatments or vaccines.

Even today, CWD is not fully understood. Studies are ongoing and will likely take many years, largely because it takes a long time for symptoms of disease to appear.

Scientists believe the proteins probably spread through bodily fluids, either directly or through contamination of soil, food or water. It can spread quickly and the prions remain in the environment for a long time, so other animals can still contract it even after an infected animal has died.

At this time, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there have been no reported cases of CWD jumping species to human beings. However, studies have suggested that it may pose a risk to other primates that are genetically close to humans, such as macaques.

For this reason, the World Health Organization has recommended since 1997 that efforts must be made to ensure the agents of all known prion diseases do not enter the human food chain.