sstephenson@wyomingnews.com

CHEYENNE n Rich Guenzel follows the tracks of the already flattened grass down the side of Wyoming Highway 130.

Hopping out of the Game and Fish truck, he pulls signs out of the back, advising hunters to stop at the fast approaching check station, a group of small cabins called “Jack’s Place” right outside of Centennial.

The station isn’t set up as a law enforcement station, but rather a sampling station or sorts n one of many that are being set up all throughout the state to test for Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, in deer, elk and moose.

“We don’t know until people stop whether they have anything or not,” Guenzel says. “We’re basically going for a sample.”

Guenzel says in the 21 years he has been with the department as a wildlife biologist, he has seen the public concern about CWD steadily decline.

“Sampling really wasn’t a big deal until they had that mad cow episode in Great Britain,” he says. “That raised the question about human health issues.”

Guenzel finishes placing signs and pulls into the check station. The trucks are already starting to roll in.

Tim Hawkins, CWD testing technician, finishes pulling a sample from an elk.

“One sample down,” he says. “That’s the first elk I ever did.”

“Was it cooperating with you?” Guenzel asks.

“It was cooperating quite well,” Hawkins says.

To obtain a sample, they make a deep incision under the windpipe of the animal and remove the lymphnodes, small grayish white glands.

Bob Lanka, Laramie region information education specialist for the Wyoming Game and Fish, says the department is looking for about 5-6,000 samples statewide.

“Most of the effort has been here in the Snowy Range,” he says.

So far, two new hunt areas have turned up animals which tested positive for CWD. Hunt area 23, near Sheridan had one deer test positive and hunt area 14 on the eastern edge of Converse County had one elk test positive.

However, it is still very early in the testing process to get any idea on the spread of the disease.

Chronic Wasting Disease has been around for about 30 years, but didn’t really come to a front until the scare with Mad Cow disease.

It’s caused by an abnormal protein called a prion. Since it is a protein it is technically not alive like bacteria or viruses are. They are quite similar to normal proteins, but are shaped differently and in turn cause other normal proteins to alter themselves to take on the shape of the prion.

Technically, the disease is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy: transmissible because animals can infect each other, spongiform because it creates spongy holes in the brain, and encephalopathy because it is a brain disease.

Some of the symptoms are: Emaciation, poor body condition, rough hair coat, droopy ears, behavior changes such as hyperactivity when constrained or reluctance to move, excessive salivation, excessive drinking or staying close to a water source, lethargy, death.

However, most animals harvested by hunters show none of these symptoms.

Hank Edwards, wildlife disease specialist for Wyoming Game and Fish, says it can take as long as 18 months for an animal to show symptoms.

“The vast majority of our positives are normal, happy, healthy fat animals,” he says. “It’s one of the biggest problems that hunters have to get their mind around. So when you report their animal’s positive, they say ‘no way, maybe you screwed up in the lab somewhere.’”

Edwards says if the animal is showing those types of symptoms, it’s likely in the end stages of the disease.

“It’s a very sensitive test,” he says. “It’s able to detect this prion in very low concentrations before getting to the end stages of the disease.”

The testing process for CWD can be complicated.

Edwards says it takes about four to five hours to test a sample and costs about $15 per sample.

“It works out that we can process about 200 samples a day. It’s not just the testing that takes so long, it’s all the paperwork that goes with it,” he says. “On a real good week we can do about 1000 (samples).”

Once brought to the lab, the lymph node is diced to a certain weight and then placed in a machine that, for lack of a better term, makes lymph node smoothie.

It is then put onto a plate where it is sent through a five step preparation process. A chemical is then added that turns blue if the CWD prions are present.

If they do have a positive test, it is run two more times and then sent to the state veterinary laboratory.

“When we have a positive, it’s verified numerous times,” Edwards says. “It’s quite a process.”

Edwards says even with positive test results, people seem to be less concerned about the disease, especially when compared to other major wildlife diseases that are affecting the area.

“We’re getting to the point where people are starting to care about this disease less and less and less. It’s past its limelight,” he says.

However, there are still some misunderstandings surrounding CWD.

Terry Kreeger, supervisor for the veterinary services branch at the Wildlife Research Center at Sybille, says one of the major misconceptions about CWD is that it is transmissible to humans.

“There’s no evidence at all that people can get this disease,” he says. “No one can ever say never, but it’s highly unlikely that people can get it.”

While there are still a lot of things they don’t know, Kreeger says there are a few things they are pretty sure of.

First, it only takes small amounts of the infectious material to induce disease. Male deer are more likely to get the disease than females and the prevalence is much higher in adults than yearlings.

“Once CWD has become established in a population, no wildlife management agency has been able to stop its spread,” he says.

Kreeger says they are unsure how the disease is transmitted. They think it is probably transmitted through infected feces and urine, but there is currently research being done on that front.

He says it is difficult to determine what the overall impact will be.

“So far we have not determined any impact on populations,” Kreeger says. “That’s not to say it won’t have an impact on populations”

Edwards says it can be difficult to determine a definite impact because you can’t subtract all the other natural factors that affect a population.

“It doesn’t look like we’ve got any good way to get rid of it,” Edwards says. “There’s not too many tools in our tool box to be honest.”

Timeline:

Late 1960s: First recognition of a clinical syndrome termed “chronic wasting disease” in captive mule deer in Colorado

1977/1978: Diagnosis of CWD in mule deer as a spongiform encephalopathy

1978/1979: Diagnosis of CWD in captive mule deer and black-tailed deer in Wyoming

1979: Diagnosis of CWD in captive Rocky Mountain elk

Late 1970s: Diagnosis of spongiform encephalopathy in captive mule deer in a zoo in Ontario (CWD did not persist in this location)

1980: First published report of CWD in captive mule deer

1981: Diagnosis of VWD in free-ranging Rocky Mountain elk in Colorado

1982: First published report of CWD in Rocky Mountain elk

1983: Start of hunter-harvest surveillance for CWD

1985: Diagnosis of CWD in free-ranging mule deer

1990: Diagnosis of CWD in free-ranging white-tailed deer

1992: First published report of CWD in free-ranging cervids

1996: Diagnosis of CWD in game farm elk in Saskatchewan

1997: Diagnosis of CWD in game farm elk in South Dakota

2000/2001: Diagnosis of CWD in free-ranging mule deer in Saskatchewan, possible associated with CWD endemic area of Colorado and Wyoming

2000/2001: Diagnosis of CWD in free-ranging mule deer in Nebraska contiguous with the CWD endemic area of Colorado and Wyoming

2001: Extensive depopulation of game farm elk in Saskatchewan due to CWD

2001: Diagnosis of CWD in an elk imported from Canada to Korea in 1997

2001: Declaration of a USDA animal emergency because of CWD in game farm elk

2002: Diagnosis of CWD in free-ranging deer associated with an affected game farm in Nebraska

2002: Diagnosis of CWD in free-ranging white-tailed deer in Wisconsin

2002: Diagnosis of CWD in free-ranging mule deer in New Mexico

Source: Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance

Recommendations for Hunters

? Do not shoot, handle or consume any animal that is acting abnormally or appears to be sick. Contact your state game and fish department if you see or harvest an animal that appears sick.

? Wear latex or rubber gloves when field dressing your deer or elk.

? Bone out the meat from your animal. Don’t saw through bone, and avoid cutting through the brain and spinal cord.

? Minimize the handling of brain and spinal tissues.

? Wash hands and instruments thoroughly after field dressing is completed.

? Avoid consuming brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes of harvested animals. (Normal field dressing coupled with boning out a carcass will remove most, if not all, of these body parts. Cutting away all fatty tissue will remove remaining lymph nodes.)

? Avoid consuming the meat from any animal that tests positive for the disease.

? If you have your deer of elk commercially processed, request that your animal is processed individually, without meat from other animals being added to the meat from your animal.

Source: Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance