The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is calling on deer hunters to help fight the spread of chronic wasting disease.
The disease attacks the central nervous system of deer, elk and moose.
Wildlife officials say the fatal disease was first identified in Michigan in 2008 in a privately owned deer. The disease appeared again in a free ranging deer, in 2015.
Chad Stewart is the deer, elk, and moose management specialist with the DNR. He said the department has been setting up preventative measures to try and isolate the disease.
“One is, we enhance surveillance to identify what’s occurring. Typically we ban baiting and feeding in the area to reduce the potential risk of transmission from deer to deer,” he said. “We try to do some sort of estimate on how many deer in the area.”
Stewart said the department takes further steps, like placing carcass dumpsters in locations impacted by the disease.
“What we hope for these meetings will accomplish is really to establish a two-way conversation on CWD in Michigan,” he said. “One is, we certainly want everyone to be aware what this disease is, what we’re seeing in the state, and what other states are seeing, who have been dealing with it a lot longer.”
Stewart said although the Ingham and Clinton county area appears to be recovering, the disease has been identified more recently in Montcalm, Ionia, and Kent counties.
“In and around the area where we first found the deer, 9 of them had CWD. Fortunately, none were identified in 2017, so we feel that our management approach so far have been effective for the area.”
A goal for the Michigan DNR is to share information with hunters to help with an overall outlook on the deer population, so that more research and preventative measures can be implemented.
The Michigan DNR will be hosting public engagement meetings from April 10th to May 3rd to share information with, and learn from the state’s deer hunters.
For more information on the meeting schedule, visit our website radio (dot) wcmu (dot) org.
For the sake of transparency, we note that the Michigan DNR is a financial supporter of WCMU.