State’s deer being tested for sickness

By Rebecca Berdar, rberdar@altoonamirror.com
HUNTINGDON — A group of hunters in Pennsylvania hope they don’t find what they are looking for. They are not armed with guns, but with scalpels, as they test for Chronic Wasting Disease.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission is taking tissue samples from about 4,000 adult whitetail deer killed by hunters to determine whether the disease, which reduces animals to skin and bone, has breached state borders.

So far, no cases have been reported in Pennsylvania, where testing started in 2002. The disease has stricken whitetail deer and related species in 14 states.

‘‘It’s mostly in the central Western states, but cases have been popping up in the East. It’s certainly spreading,’’ said Justin Vreeland, biologist for the commission’s Southcentral Region.

Working in a makeshift laboratory at the commission’s Southcentral Region headquarters in Huntingdon, technicians representing the commission and the state departments of Health and Agriculture harvested lymph nodes and brain tissue from the heads of about 750 deer felled by hunters across the region’s 11 counties in the opening days of buck season.

Vreeland said the heads were collected from butchers and other processors, then delivered to one of the state’s six regional offices. There, tissue was extracted, packaged in a preservative and shipped out for testing. He said test results are expected by late winter.

In addition to taking samples, workers also served as teachers for veterinarians, taxidermists, deer breeders and others wishing to take part in monitoring the disease.

‘‘We give them hands-on experience. Once certified, they can sample their own deer or someone else’s,” said Jennifer Johnson, domestic animal health inspector for the state Department of Agriculture. She said 18 people signed up for training in the Southcentral Region.

The disease, a neurological ailment, was discovered in Colorado in 1967 and belongs to a group of diseases called spongiform encephalopathies, which also includes scrapie and ‘‘mad cow disease.’’

According to the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance, four species of the deer family are known to be susceptible: elk, mule deer, whitetail deer and moose.

Game Commission wildlife veterinarian Dr. Walter Cottrell said the disease does what its name implies.

‘‘[Deer] stop eating. It wastes their muscle mass, and they will die from organ failure and malnutrition,” Cottrell said, adding that infected animals also are subject to secondary illnesses as their immune system collapses. ‘‘It is uniformly fatal.’’

Cottrell said although detected about 40 years ago, ‘‘There is a lot that is not 100 percent certain’’ about the disease.

‘‘The incubation period is 12 to 24 months. A disease with a very long incubation period is very hard to study,” he said, adding that there is a lot of evidence that indicates the disease can’t be contracted by people.

However, hunters are advised not to harvest deer that appear sickly or demonstrate abnormal behavior.

Cottrell said hunters who encounter such animals should contact the Game Commission immediately.

Mirror Staff Writer Rebecca Berdar is at 946-7458.