By DON DUBUC

“If I asked everyone in this room to play Russian roulette for $25 I doubt I’d get many takers. Even though the 1 in 6 odds are in your favor, $25 is very little gain for the tremendous risk at stake. The same situation exists with potential Chronic Wasting Disease contamination.”

That’s how LDWF biologist Fred Kimmel’s summed up the state’s choices – either a total ban on importation of white-tailed deer and elk or to put the state’s wild deer population and a $600 million industry at risk.

After hearing Kimmel’s testimony the LDWF commission in May, voted unanimously to impose an outright and total ban. And although only the first step, it would, however, be a big one in dealing with this insidious disease. Or so they and concerned deer hunters thought.

Apparently there is a loophole in the regulations that allows the Department of Agriculture to make exceptions and they have. Forty-four pen-raised deer were shipped to a Louisiana operator from another state shortly after the ban took effect.

Some have since died and the situation has Wildlife Division administrator Tommy Prickett more than a little concerned.

“We know that the source of these deer was not CWD-free certified. While there’s no evidence that these deer died of CWD or are infected, there’s no evidence that they’re not. And while little is known about exactly how the disease is spread to wild deer, we do know that in every instance it can be traced back to infected animals from a deer pen,” he said.

Prickett said if the loopholes aren’t closed it could spell doom for the state’s burgeoning deer herd, one that took more than 40 years to build because the threat of Chronic Wasting disease is real.

CWD has been found in confined or free-ranging deer or elk in Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana. This spring Wisconsin became the first state east of the Mississippi River to confirm CWD in its wild deer population.

Officials there reacted by issuing plans to kill more than 15,000 deer in infected counties. Since there is no live test the only way CWD can be controlled is by completely eradicating all deer in infected areas and that’s not cheap. Sending specimens to out of state testing labs, the cost of monitoring confined deer as well as those in the wild and the cost of destroying and safely disposing of carcasses would run into millions of dollars. To monitor and contain their outbreak, the Department of Natural Resources in Wisconsin spent $250,000 during the first 49 days following its discovery.

So what exactly is Chronic Wasting Disease and what makes it so threatening? CWD was first identified in deer and elk in northwest Colorado in the late 1960s and appeared to be limited to animals only in that small region.

It is a “prion” or mutated protein-triggered, untreatable, fatal disorder that affects white-tailed deer and elk. The protein creates holes in the brain tissue, which leads to weakness, emaciation, loss of motor control, stumbling, falling, blindness, drooling and eventual death. It’s the deer’s answer to Mad Cow in cattle, Scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeld-Jakob in humans. There is no evidence of cases in humans.

Scientists believe transporting infected animals to other areas has caused its spread.

Over the last 10 years, an industry involving intrastate buying and selling of live deer, elk and exotic animals for confined hunting, selective trophy breeding and meat production has developed.

The means by which CWD is transmitted is unknown but scientists believe it is probably passed from animal to animal, perhaps through mucus as deer touch noses. Maternal transmission from infected does to fawns is also thought to occur.

CWD is very difficult to detect and control. The incubation period is at least 18 months and as long as 3-5 years. This means many animals may already be infected and infecting others before they are diagnosed.

It’s not a pretty picture for the state-estimated 200,000 deer hunters. The LDWF is putting together a plan of action involving locating and destroying the 44 imported deer and any deer known to have come in contact with them, as well as testing deer from private enclosures and the wild.

Hunters can help by reporting any unusual behavior that might be symptoms of CWD and participating in sampling programs. Since most states have banned the importation of pen-raised animals, we could become a “dumping ground” for farmers looking to cut their losses.

To prevent this the first step is to urge their elected officials to close the loophole by transferring complete authority over deer and elk importation to the LDWF and away from the Department of Agriculture.

DON DUBUC is the outdoors reporter for L’Observateur.