Deadly deer disease advances across the state

Of all the challenges currently facing the folks at the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) from budget shortfalls to falling license sales, to the question of Sunday hunting, nothing is more pressing or urgent than containing the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a malady that poses a dire threat to the Commonwealth’s primo game animal, the whitetail deer.

With the first recorded case detected on an Adams County deer farm back in 2012, the number of chronic wasting disease cases continues to multiply in Pennsylvania. As a result, an increasing number of the state’s residents are being impacted by rules designed to slow the spread of the disease, one that is always fatal to the deer and elk it infects.

In 2017, chronic wasting disease (CWD) was detected in 78 free-ranging deer in Pennsylvania. For perspective, that’s more than three times the number of freeranging, CWD-positive deer documented in the state in 2016 when 25 were detected. In order to combat the spread of the disease, the PGC has established designated Disease Management Areas (DMAs).

Most of the new freeranging positives (75 of them)either were within or near the boundary of Disease Management Area 2 (DMA 2) in southcentral Pennsylvania. Three freeranging CWD-positives were within or near DMA 3 in northwestern Pennsylvania. In response to the spike in the number of new cases being detected near their boundaries, both of these DMAs have been expanded.

And evidence that the disease is creeping ever closer to us here in the southeastern corner of the state was the creation earlier this year of DMA 4, established after CWD was detected at a captive deer farm in Lancaster County. This adds up to more than 5,895 square miles of Penn’s Woods that lie within these expanded or newly established DMAs, areas in which special rules apply to both hunters and residents.

To that end it’s unlawful to feed deer within any DMA. Hunters are prohibited from transporting high-risk parts (generally the head and backbone) from deer they harvest within a DMA to points outside a DMA. The use or field possession of urinebased deer attractants also is prohibited within DMAs.

Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans emphasized the importance of residents and hunters becoming familiar with and complying with these rules. “The escalating number of CWD detections and the sudden emergence of this disease in new parts of the state should put all Pennsylvanians on guard to the threat CWD poses and the disease’s potential to have damaging impacts on Pennsylvania’s deer and deer-hunting tradition,” Burhans said. “It’s important for each of us to take this threat seriously and do all we can to slow the spread of the disease where it exists.

“By discontinuing feeding of deer and curbing other behavior that induces deer to congregate, and potentially spread disease, and by responsibly disposing of high-risk deer parts and not transporting them outside DMAs, those living within DMAs can do their part in helping fight CWD,” Burhans said.

The state’s battle against CWD does not come cheap. In their attempt to head off the spread of CWD, both the PGC and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) are designating significant portions of their budgets to that cause. Burhans reported that in the coming year his agency will spend as much as $1.7 million to combat and monitor CWD in wild deer. The PDA, in addressing the problem with captive deer, expects to spend more than $1.5 million. ANTLERLESS DEER LICENSES NOW ON SALE » While the new hunting license year began on July 1, the sale of antlerless licenses began this week on July 9 with resident hunter applications given preference. Nonresidents may submit their first applications a week later, beginning Monday, July 16.

Resident applicants need to make checks and money orders payable to “County Treasurer” for $6.90 for each license they seek. The fee for nonresidents is $26.90 per license. A list of participating county treasurers and their addresses is provided by issuing agents when licenses are purchased and can be found within the 2018-19 Pennsylvania Hunting & Trapping Digest, which can be purchased with a license or viewed online.

In any WMU where antlerless licenses remain, resident and nonresident applicants may apply for a second license beginning Aug. 6, and a third license Aug. 20, both by mail only. In most parts of the state, hunters are limited to purchasing a total of three antlerless licenses.