Texas, Arkansas tackle CWD issues in own ways

Published 5:41 pm Saturday, July 9, 2016

Right now Texas and Arkansas game officials are battling to control chronic wasting disease in their deer herds.

Even though the disease is the same in both states, the way the two are attacking it could not be any more different.

Texas’ main line of defense is inside high fences, and to be even more exact high fences at deer breeding operations.

That is where 24 cases of CWD have been found in Texas. All of those have occurred in the Medina County area with deer on or that originated from a single breeder operation. There have been eight cases in free-ranging mule deer in the Trans Pecos region, one in the Panhandle and one that was a liberated deer from the ground zero pens in Medina County.

In Arkansas the fight is being conducted in a much more public way.

At about the same time Parks and Wildlife commissioners approved new rules involving deer movement by breeders and landowners in the state, Arkansas’ commissioners declared a 10-county CWD management zone in response to the disease being found in five of the counties since February. In some counties the prevalence rate of CWD has been as high as 23 percent of the deer tested.

Arkansas’ new rules include a ban on feeding wildlife within the management zone anytime other than Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, when hunters take 95 percent of their deer.

Oddly the rule does not include food plots even though there is a theory indicating the disease might be spread from deer to deer after being distributed on blades of vegetation.

Also exempt are backyard bird-feeding stations, hand-feeding wildlife and normal livestock practices.

Arkansas commissioners also banned the use of scents and lures using natural deer and elk urine.

They also put a halt to the rehabilitation of deer statewide. The reasoning on banning rehabilitation is studies that have shown that 75 percent of fawns released from rehabilitation facilities die within 100 days of returning to the wild. With only about 100 releases annually the state determined the risk of one of them carrying CWD into the wild is not worth the reward.

Arkansas game officials will provide additional deer tags to landowners near known CWD cases for herd reduction. They also increased bag limits in zones where CWD was detected during the modern gun season by an additional doe, and the three-point rule will be waved. The three-point rule is Arkansas’ equivalent of Texas’ minimum inside spread rule.

Even movement of dead deer and elk within the state will be affected. Only deboned meat, cleaned skulls, antlers, teeth, hides and taxidermy products may be taken from the management zone.

In a rule few hunters should complain about, hunters outside of Boone, Carroll, Madison, Newton and Searcy counties will be able to harvest one elk, either sex, during the regular deer season in an effort to contain them to their current range.

Arkansas does have a small number of commercial high fence hunting operations and an even smaller number of deer breeders, However, the state banned the importation of deer, elk and other cervids in 2002.

“We really started ramping up our CWD surveillance about then,” said Ralph Meeker, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission assistant deer program coordinator. “We have been diligent in surveillance in Arkansas and we think that has helped us.”

However, he said the prevalence of CWD in the counties where it was found and that it was found in both deer and elk was surprising. Meeker said biologists have no idea what caused the outbreak, but among the multiple possibilities is that it was inadvertently brought in when the state restocked elk in the 1980s.

Fortunately for hunters in Texas all of the cases of CWD in Arkansas have been found in the far northwest portion of the state, too distant at this point to be a concern to hunters and landowners along the Red River in East Texas.

That does not mean Texas doesn’t have its own issues with the disease. It is just that it is primarily contained to breeding pens. That has created a contentious situation between TPWD biologists, deer breeders and to a lesser degree the Texas Animal Health Commission, which also has a hand in the management of wildlife disease as well.

Before this round of rules a coalition was created from the state agencies, breeders, landowners and hunters. There are still dissident voices among the breeders, but apparently the plan put into place by TPWD is more palatable than past efforts.

One of the biggest obstacles to agreement in the past has been a requirement for testing deer using only dead deer. It is the only process approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This go-round a compromise was reached that allows a combination of testing methods, including live animal testing before breeders would be allowed to transport deer from one facility to another or to a ranch for release.

The plan also allows landowners to request expansion of release sites and exempts testing on sites using Trap, Transfer, Transplant, or Triple T, permits.

This plan has almost no impact or restrictions on the vast majority of hunters in Texas who take an estimated 600,000 deer annually. It will, however, for those who are among the hunters who take the 30,000 to 40,000 released deer each year – although they really won’t see the behind-the-scenes effort to abide by the regulations.

TPWD biologists will continue to harvest and sample deer around the state as well as ask hunters to donate tissue from harvested deer for testing this season. Last year about 9,000 deer were sampled.

Alan Cain, TPWD’s white-tailed deer program leader, said the department does have contingency plans if the disease is ever found in higher numbers in a location. Which direction it goes is based on a number of factors including prevalence and even whether the deer are behind a high fence or spread across low-fence country.

“Disease management strategies to combat CWD could include efforts to eradicate CWD where practical and when circumstances warrant such a response. A more likely option would be to implement actions to limit the spread and distribution of CWD from a general area where it was detected,” Cain noted.

“Understanding several factors that could affect disease prevalence and spread such as geographic extent of the disease, infection rates, how and when the disease was introduced to the area, fence height that may limit immigration/emigration and others would help determine the most appropriate response to address the CWD discovery. With either management strategy, some targeted reduction in the deer population is likely to be recommended unless deer densities are already at low numbers.”

How much population reduction is required will depend on whether the goal is to eliminate CWD or to control the spread and reduce or maintain the rate. Cain said total elimination, which translate to depopulation, would only occur in extraordinary situations.

“However, landowners should keep in mind that density goals for CWD management will be determined on a case by case basis depending on many factors. TPWD and TAHC will always use the best science available and take into account all ramifications of the disease and management actions before decisions are made,” he said.

He said a fast-action plan would begin with the two agencies talking to the landowner, and determining the geographical size and prevalence of an affected area.

The department would up the sample size locally, hopefully allowing the landowner to do so by conducting hunts to maintain revenue.

Additionally the department could use special regulations and mandatory or voluntary check stations as it has in the Trans Pecos.

Have a comment or opinion on this story? Contact outdoor writer Steve Knight by email at outdoor@tylerpaper.com. Follow Steve Knight on Facebook at Texas All Out

doors and on Twitter @txalloutdoors