Utah elk found with chronic wasting disease
March 11th, 2010 @ 4:53pm
By MIKE STARK
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A fatal wildlife disease that affects the brain and nervous system has been found for the first time in an elk from Utah.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources on Thursday confirmed the state's first chronic wasting disease case in an elk. It had already been documented in some of the state's deer.
Chronic wasting disease is a contagious neurological disease that's fatal to deer, elk and moose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers it endemic among deer and elk in Wyoming and Colorado and present in at least nine other states.
The agency said there's no strong evidence it can be passed to humans.
The female elk that tested positive was shot in southeastern Utah's LaSal Mountains in November, state officials said Thursday.
Biologists had long suspected CWD was circulating at a low-level among certain elk populations, said Leslie McFarlane, wildlife disease program coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources.
She estimated the prevalence rate among elk in the LaSals was likely less than 1 percent.
Still, the disease is a concern for its potential effects on herds and uncertainty about exactly how it spreads.
The state for years has been on the lookout for CWD and in 2002 started analyzing deer and elk samples often provided by hunters.
Of the 15,000 mule deer samples tested, 48 have come up positive for the disease. Most are from the LaSals.
Often the animals die from something else before the disease takes a deep hold and causes them to act strangely and begin wasting away.
The positive case with the elk won't provoke any immediate management changes in Utah, McFarlane said.
"There are not a lot of management options once you have in your populations," she said. "It's basically now a monitor-to-see-what-happens."
In neighboring Wyoming, which confirmed its first case of CWD in a wild elk in 1986, the disease continues to spread. Prevalence rates typically bounce around between 2 percent and 10 percent in samples voluntarily submitted by hunters each year, said Terry Kreeger, chief veterinary officer for Wyoming Game and Fish.
Rates are higher in deer, he said.
Despite predictions years ago that CWD would devastate herds, there's no evidence that's happening with Wyoming's elk, Kreeger said, and only suspicions that it's driving down deer numbers.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
March 11th, 2010 @ 4:53pm
By MIKE STARK
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A fatal wildlife disease that affects the brain and nervous system has been found for the first time in an elk from Utah.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources on Thursday confirmed the state's first chronic wasting disease case in an elk. It had already been documented in some of the state's deer.
Chronic wasting disease is a contagious neurological disease that's fatal to deer, elk and moose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers it endemic among deer and elk in Wyoming and Colorado and present in at least nine other states.
The agency said there's no strong evidence it can be passed to humans.
The female elk that tested positive was shot in southeastern Utah's LaSal Mountains in November, state officials said Thursday.
Biologists had long suspected CWD was circulating at a low-level among certain elk populations, said Leslie McFarlane, wildlife disease program coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources.
She estimated the prevalence rate among elk in the LaSals was likely less than 1 percent.
Still, the disease is a concern for its potential effects on herds and uncertainty about exactly how it spreads.
The state for years has been on the lookout for CWD and in 2002 started analyzing deer and elk samples often provided by hunters.
Of the 15,000 mule deer samples tested, 48 have come up positive for the disease. Most are from the LaSals.
Often the animals die from something else before the disease takes a deep hold and causes them to act strangely and begin wasting away.
The positive case with the elk won't provoke any immediate management changes in Utah, McFarlane said.
"There are not a lot of management options once you have in your populations," she said. "It's basically now a monitor-to-see-what-happens."
In neighboring Wyoming, which confirmed its first case of CWD in a wild elk in 1986, the disease continues to spread. Prevalence rates typically bounce around between 2 percent and 10 percent in samples voluntarily submitted by hunters each year, said Terry Kreeger, chief veterinary officer for Wyoming Game and Fish.
Rates are higher in deer, he said.
Despite predictions years ago that CWD would devastate herds, there's no evidence that's happening with Wyoming's elk, Kreeger said, and only suspicions that it's driving down deer numbers.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
