CWD-positive deer farms may catch a break
Over the last five years, a Marathon County shooting preserve has had 74 white-tailed deer killed on its property that tested positive for chronic wasting disease, according to recent data from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
The business, Wilderness North near Eland, remains open and with deer on site. And it has only a single fence separating its captive deer from wild deer on the outside, according to Department of Natural Resources records.
It's the type of facility that would be required to add a second perimeter barrier if an emergency rule passed last month is allowed to take effect.
A Legislative committee, however, is poised to meet Monday in Madison to suspend all or part of the rule.
The number of CWD-positive deer at Wilderness North is only expected to increase this fall as more are shot by paying customers and tested for the disease, according to a former state wildlife director.
"Once (CWD) is in a captive herd like that, history shows it eventually affects a large majority of the animals," said Tom Hauge, retired director of wildlife for the DNR and now a volunteer with Wisconsin's Green Fire, a conservation group.
The soil at Wilderness North is likely so contaminated with CWD prions the site would likely need extensive remediation to prevent future outbreaks of the fatal deer disease at the facility, Hauge said.
And as long as diseased captive deer or contaminated soil is present, there is a risk to wild deer in the area.
The single fence at Wilderness North poses a threat of nose-to-nose contact between animals on the opposite side.
While Wilderness North is the most extreme case, it's not alone - eight other CWD-positive facilities in Wisconsin are being allowed to continue operations by state agriculture officials. At least several have single fences, according to DNR records. Concerns over CWD management in Wisconsin are spiking as a Legislative committee prepares to review a emergency rule passed in August.
The rule, recommended by Gov. Scott Walker and approved unanimously by the Natural Resources Board, would add restrictions on deer carcass transport by hunters as well as require enhanced fencing at deer farms.
It represents the first substantive rules change in perhaps 10 years at reducing the spread of CWD in Wisconsin.
Another rule recommended by Gov. Walker - to prohibit transfer of captive deer out of CWD-positive counties - was shelved by the state's agriculture board.
The Legislature's Joint Committee on Review of Administrative Rules is scheduled to consider the carcass transport and deer farm fencing rule Monday in Madison.
The committee has the power to suspend all or part of the emergency rule.
All state conservation groups that have weighed in on the issue, including the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, Wisconsin Conservation Congress, Wisconsin's Green Fire and Wisconsin chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, support the rule as written.
"While there are aspects we'd like to improve down the road, we'd definitely like to keep this rule in place," Hauge said, representing the Wisconsin's Green Fire stance.
The rule would require CWD-positive facilities to have at least a second 8-foottall fence or a solid barrier that is at least 8 feet.
If the Joint Legislative committee suspends the enhanced fencing requirement, it would give the deer farms a financial break but fail to add the intended safeguards for the wild herd.
In addition to Wilderness North, the following CWD-positive facilities remain open in Wisconsin: Hunt's End in Ogdensburg, 12 CWD-positive animals; Apple Creek Game Farm, Gillett, 11; Three Lakes Trophy Ranch, Three Lakes, 9; Tamarack Deer and Elk Farm, Kewaskum, 3; Comet Creek, Tigerton, 3; Peck's Farm Market II, Spring Green, 1; Wild River Whitetails, Goodman, 1; an unnamed facility owned by Dennis Denman, Plain, 1.
Single fences are in place at Wilderness North and Hunt's End and on at least portions of Apple Creek, Three Lakes, Tamarack and Comet Creek, according to DNR records.
Hauge was with the DNR when, after several years of legal wrangling, state officials in 2006 depopulated Buckhorn Flats deer farm in Portage County. Eighty CWD-positive deer were documented at the site.
State officials considered the risk presented by CWD prions remaining at the depopulated facility so large that the DNR purchased the site in 2011 for $465,000. A second high fence was installed and it has been kept free of deer.
The disease-causing prions remain viable in the environment at least a couple years, said Bryan Richards, CWD coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Research has yet to show how long CWD prions remain infective, but in scrapie (in the same disease family as CWD) they've been documented to last 16 years.
"As far as the risk from CWD prions, it's reasonable to say years, if not decades," Richards said.
Hauge said while the emergency rule may not be perfect, it addresses two critical modes of CWD transmission.
"Whether it's the deer farms or carcass transport, these are areas of human-aided spread of the disease that we can do something about," Hauge said.
The Joint Committee on Review of Administrative Rules meeting, which will include a public hearing followed by an executive session, will be at 10 a.m. Monday in Room 412 East at the Capitol.