Saturday marks the start of deer hunting season. Unlike previous years, this is the first year Wisconsin hunters and venison consumers will have to deal with chronic wasting disease, and many student hunters will have to choose how to respond to this unknown risk.
\My brother became a vegetarian because of it,"" UW-Madison sophomore Chrissy Klemens said.
CWD is a progressive, degenerative and fatal disease found in deer and elk, first detected in wild deer in Colorado in 1981. The disease spread to farmed deer herds and eventually to free-ranging deer herds in Colorado, South Dakota and now Wisconsin, as confirmed by a surveillance test this February that identified infected deer near Mt. Horeb.
The transmission mechanism of this contagious disease remains a mystery, as does any cure or treatment. There is only one solution to stopping the spread of the disease'killing all the infected deer. With a state deer population one million, and with many more millions of tourism dollars at stake from the annual deer hunt, governmental agencies have quickly stepped forward to address the growing problem in an attempt to calm hunters' fears.
Though scientists have found the disease cannot be spread to humans, there is a palatable unease among hunters. Despite unusual encouragement and public relations efforts from the state government, the numbers of hunting licenses issued has noticeably dropped this year.
A special ""Zone T"" hunting season was developed and implemented in late October this year with the intent of eradicating and testing deer in areas believed to be infected with CWD. Federally approved CWD testing centers were set up in Wisconsin for hunters to have their deer checked. The testing is free, and the results are posted by region on the DNR Web site, http://www.state.dnr.wi.us, along with a list of testing centers.
However, according to Barbara Ingham, UW-Madison assistant professor of food science, these tests are not food safety tests, as the incubation period of the disease is 18 months, and young infected animals may not show overt signs of sickness.
Also, unlike other pathogens, CWD-causing prions are resistant to heat and cannot be destroyed by canning or cooking.
Deer hunter Mark Totzke, a UW-Madison senior, said he is concerned about the health risks of CWD.
""I will be hunting in an area of northern Wisconsin where CWD isn't a problem,"" Totzke said. ""But I'm a little more leery about where I'll take the meat for processing. I worry about the chance for cross-contamination.""
However, UW-Madison junior Ryan Grady said he doesn't believe the disease poses any threat.
""I'm not concerned,"" he said. ""Because there aren't any known cases of CWD spreading to humans.\
