Title: FW: [globalnews] Wasting disease found in deer in Utah, New Mexico
ENN News Story
Wasting disease found in deer in Utah, New Mexico
Thursday, February 20, 2003
By Reuters
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - Chronic wasting disease, a wildlife illness related
to mad cow disease, has emerged for the first time in Utah's deer herd,
state officials said in a statement.
The disease was confirmed this week in brain tissue from a male mule deer
shot by a hunter last fall near Vernal, in northeastern Utah, the state
Division of Wildlife Resources said.
Separately, two new cases were recently reported in New Mexico, where the
disease was found last year.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) causes symptoms in deer and elk that are
similar to mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform
encephalopathy. Both disorders involve prions, misshapen proteins that
destroy the brain.
Unlike mad cow, CWD has never been shown to spread to cattle or humans.
However, health exports have advised against eating venison or other parts
of infected animals.
CWD has been endemic in deer and elk in parts of eastern Colorado and
Wyoming for decades, but it was not until last spring that cases were found
west of the Continental Divide, near the Utah state line.
"We've been watching as Colorado's samples have come in for the past few
months, and its gotten closer and closer to our border. So we're not
terribly surprised to find it," said Jim Karpowitz, the Utah agency's
big-game coordinator.
Utah has been testing for CWD since 1998. The state collected tissue samples
in 2002 from nearly 1,500 deer and elk, mostly from hunters, Karpowitz said.
Tests have been completed on nearly 1,400 of those samples. Karpowitz said
the state planned to test additional deer soon in the area where the initial
CWD case was found.
NEW CASES IN NEW MEXICO
CWD spread to several new areas in 2002, infecting U.S. deer herds as far
east as Wisconsin and as far south as New Mexico, and new cases continue to
emerge as affected states test more animals for the disease. Two new CWD
cases were confirmed last week in New Mexico, bringing that state's total
number of CWD-positive deer to six.
All of the New Mexico cases have involved mule deer killed on or around the
southern edge of White Sands Missile Range, a sprawling U.S. Army
installation, said Kerry Mower, a wildlife health specialist with the New
Mexico Department of Game and Fish. How the disease got there remains a
mystery, Mower said. No cases of CWD have been found in northern New Mexico,
which is home to the state's largest deer populations.
"We still have no idea how CWD came to exist at the range. It is 600 miles
from the epicenter of the disease in Colorado," Mower said in a statement
last week.
New Mexico has tested roughly 600 deer statewide for CWD since hunting
season began in September 2002, and the state will test roughly 100 more by
the end of June 2003, Mower said.
