N.Y. studies ban on deer-urine lures

ALBANY, N.Y. — Deer hunters who like to lure their quarry with a dab of eau de doe-in-rut will have to find another way to attract a trophy buck in New York if state wildlife biologists have their way.

Proposed regulations would add New York to a growing list of states and Canadian provinces banning deer-urine lures in an effort to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease, a deadly brain infection that’s working its way through North American deer, elk and moose populations.

The disease is caused by infectious proteins called prions, which are believed to be shed in saliva, feces and urine and can contaminate forage plants and build up in soil.

“Not only does this horrible disease kill animals slowly, but wild white-tailed deer hunting represents a $1.5 billion industry in the state,” Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos said in releasing a draft plan to control it last month.

Since the disease was first recognized in captive mule deer in Colorado about 50 years ago, it has slowly spread to 24 states and two Canadian provinces.

The disease was discovered in a handful of wild and captive white-tailed deer in central New York in 2005, prompting the state to enact measures to halt it. They include a feeding ban, a prohibition on hunters taking deer carcasses from infected states into New York, and a ban on deer farms importing livestock. It’s the only state to have eliminated the disease after it was found in wild populations, Seggos said.

That ban doesn’t sit well with deer farmers who collect and sell urine, manufacturers who market it under names like “Code Blue” and “Buck Bomb,” and hunters who dribble the foul-smelling fluid on foliage or cotton balls hung near their tree stands.

“When you’re bowhunting, you have to draw the deer in close,” said Dave Vanderzee, president of the New York Deer Farmers Association and operator of a private hunting preserve. “Attractant is the only way to do it in New York because you’re not allowed to have a bait pile.”

Ed Gorch, an upstate New York hunter who has been bowhunting for 45 years, said he uses deer urine and other scents, even skunk, to distract deer from his own smell. “As for switching to synthetic scents, I don’t think it would make much difference,” Gorch said. “I think most sportsmen would go along with that once they realize the danger of chronic wasting disease.”