The province each year since 1997 has asked hunters to submit heads from harvested deer, moose and elk to test for CWD. It announced Sept. 26 it has opened its CWD testing drop-off locations for this year, until Jan. 21, 2024.

“We rely on hunters submitting samples for testing so we can continue to measure and manage CWD, and we are grateful to their ongoing support in those efforts,” Environment Minister Christine Tell said in a release.

Samples can be submitted from animals harvested anywhere in the province, but the ministry said its CWD focus this year is on seven specific wildlife management zones: 2W, 9 and 10 in the province’s southwest; 47 and 55 in the northwest; 50, east of Prince Albert; and 37, which runs from around Yorkton, Melville and Kamsack east to the Manitoba border.

But in response to the bovine TB findings this year in a cattle herd in the east-central region, the ministry this year also wants to test heads from harvested elk, moose, white-tailed deer and mule deer from WMZ 37, as well as WMZ 48 (north of 37), using the same process as for submitting CWD samples.

While CWD is established in much of southern Saskatchewan and has been detected in wildlife in 60 of the province’s 83 WMZs, no case of bovine TB has yet been detected in Saskatchewan wildlife, the province said Sept. 26.

While CWD results will be posted online, hunters will be notified directly if a positive bovine TB result is detected in their submitted sample, the province said. Testing for both diseases is free and voluntary, the province added.

An animal infected with bovine TB may have lesions, of any size, that can be seen during field dressing, the province said.

The lesions may appear as round, white, tan or yellow, crumbly to paste-like, and gritty nodules throughout the lungs, the rib cage or in the chest cavity.

It’s possible, albeit extremely rare, for bovine TB to spread from animals to people, the province said, advising hunters to take “routine hygiene precautions” while field dressing or otherwise handling wildlife.

Tracing in/out

As for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s ongoing investigation and tracing of the TB-infected cattle herd, tests so far have found the disease’s spread to be limited to the one herd.

As of Wednesday, CFIA said, the infected herd has so far turned up 10 confirmed cases of bovine TB. The herd has been depopulated, its post-mortem inspections complete, and lab tests “ongoing” on tissue samples.

Past that, CFIA’s investigation has so far led it to two “trace-in” herds, three “trace-out” herds, one contact herd and one “life line” herd, but no new TB cases as of Wednesday.

A “life line” herd refers to any herd that was specifically traced from an infected animal in the infected herd. In this investigation, CFIA said, the one life line herd has been released from federal quarantine, based on negative results so far from lab tests. That said, final confirmatory lab tissue tests are “ongoing.”

A “contact” herd, meanwhile, refers to a herd that shared a fence line or “may have co-mingled” with the infected herd. Live animal testing has started on that herd and will continue through this fall, CFIA said.

“Trace-in” refers to a herd that provided animals to the infected herd. Of the two found so far in this investigation, live animal testing has been completed on one, while the other will undergo live animal testing “after summer grazing ends.”

“Trace-out” refers to a herd that received animals from the infected herd. Of the three found so far, one was released from quarantine based on negative results to date. The other two still require live animal testing — which, CFIA reiterated, is normally completed after summer grazing ends.

The infected Saskatchewan herd had come to CFIA’s attention after an animal shipped from that herd to a U.S. feedlot in September 2022 was confirmed last February as positive for the disease, based on a PCR test run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on tissue samples collected at slaughter. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Then there were a few more chowing down on the remains of a bale and a veritable conga line of them along the railway near Treherne.

The next day, in a field just below the Manitoba Escarpment, you would have sworn the landowner was farming deer.

It’s no surprise to see deer moving at this time of year but, according to recent media reports, it sure seems like there’s more of them in parts of the Prairies.

One recent article dissected what its sources call an out-of-control deer population in Saskatchewan. Farmers interviewed for the article cite dozens of sightings each night, plus feed losses, damage to yards and trees and an uptick in coyote problems.

They also highlight one of Manitoba’s newest diseases: chronic wasting disease (CWD).

It’s fatal to cervids and is of the same family as BSE, and has unfortunately dug a significant foothold in provinces to our west.

Saskatchewan’s CWD monitoring program, based largely on hunter submissions, found 644 positive cases out of 3,300 samples in the 2021-22 hunting season. Of those, 459 were mule deer, but 167 were white-tails and 16 were elk.

In Alberta in 2022, a similar program had 714 positives out of 4,517 tests, 575 of which were mule deer and 129 of which were white-tails. A handful of moose and elk samples also tested positive.

In terms of direct farm hits, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has found three CWD cases in domestic elk in Saskatchewan or Alberta so far this year. In 2022, six farms fell prey, making it a relatively good year compared to 13 domestic deer or elk herds infected in 2021 and 15 in 2020.

Manitoba does not want to get to that point.

We’re still in the beginning phases of our experience with CWD. The first cases showed up in late 2021.

To the province’s credit, those cases spurred official action. Control zones with more vigorous monitoring were introduced and population control measures were put in place.

Until that point, mule deer were a protected species and could not be hunted. They were on the table when the next time hunting season rolled around. Licence holders can now obtain three mule deer tags a year.

In December 2022, the province also announced a winter hunting season for mule deer in parts of the province. Hunting season 2022 also came with much more attention on Manitoba’s own CWD monitoring program and mandatory submission zones.

Despite all that, the future of CWD management in Manitoba looks like an uphill battle.

The inherent issues with managing disease in wild populations go without saying, particularly with the much higher levels of infection in the province next door.

And while efforts during the last hunting season were designed to detect infections and lay the groundwork for prevention in Manitoba, the number of samples overwhelmed the capacity of accredited labs to process them, according to the province’s CWD test result portal. The website warns tag-holders to expect delays of 16 to 20 weeks.

What does that mean for future years of CWD management?

Compared to Alberta or Saskatchewan, Manitoba’s numbers are still small, although the province saw its first cases in white-tailed deer this year. Those two cases, reported in early March, were found hundreds of kilometres apart, with one in the northwest near Roblin and the other in the southwest in the RM of Grassland.

Only 20 cases were found between late 2021 and the start of March this year.

But the overwhelmed labs this winter suggest another look at testing program logistics might be an order, especially if hunter submissions start to climb.

Manitoba’s elk industry has its own roles to set itself up for success. There has not been a CWD case in farmed animals in Manitoba, and the industry wants to keep it that way.

The Manitoba Elk Growers Association urges its members to sign on with the CFIA’s voluntary CWD Herd Certification Program, which includes a regimen of testing, record keeping and biosecurity.

The association has said certification is important for opening markets, but after changes in 2018, it’s also the only way for a producer to get any support from the CFIA, beyond disease traceability, should CWD be found on their farm. That includes orders to destroy animals or compensation for loss.

It may not be possible to close the lid on CWD, but if Manitoba waits until it has a big problem, that problem is here to stay.

The post Editorial: Now or never on chronic wasting disease appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The province has expanded the harvested cervid mandatory sample submission zone and established a strictly regulated and managed mule deer hunting season in defined areas along the western and southern borders of Manitoba.

All hunters in the expanded mandatory sample submission area will be required to provide samples of their harvested white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose for CWD testing. These samples will allow the province to identify infected animals and determine any spread of the disease within this high-risk zone. If a sample tests positive, hunters will be notified.

CWD is an incurable fatal disease that affects members of the deer family including white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose and caribou. Infected animals may appear healthy until the later stages of the disease. While CWD is not known as a human health risk, meat from a CWD-infected animal is not recommended for consumption.

The disease was first detected in Manitoba in 2021 in five mule deer along the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. If it spreads and becomes endemic to the province, it may threaten the health of all cervid populations in Manitoba.

Hunters active in the area where CWD is a concern should have their harvested animal tested, practise safe carcass-handling protocols and avoid consumption of any animal that has tested positive for CWD.

The post Province expands mandatory CWD sampling appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“We are impressed and pleased with the vigour and aggressiveness of (the province’s) actions and I certainly hope they’re successful,” Manitoba Elk Growers Association president Ian Thorleifson said.

At the same time, he said, they are discouraged that the province’s second and most recent CWD case was discovered near the Canada-U.S. border, hundreds of kilometres southwest of the initial case in Manitoba’s Parkland.

“It’s an indication that there’s probably more in the province than we are aware of, and I suppose that we’re less hopeful that we’re going to stop it,” he said.

Why it matters: A prion disease in the same family as BSE, CWD causes incurable neural degradation and death in cervids like deer, elk and moose.

Manitoba’s luck on CWD ran out in mid-October this year, when a visibly ill male mule deer near Lake of the Prairies was euthanized. On Nov. 1, the province announced the animal was Manitoba’s first confirmed case of CWD.

The finding was met with disappointment, but not surprise, from hunters and farmers, who had long noted Saskatchewan’s troubles with CWD and the prevalence of the illness in that province’s wild deer populations. Manitoba had likely been on borrowed time, and the elk producers’ association had long pushed for mule deer control in Manitoba.

Prior to the finding, the province had allowed no hunting of mule deer, with the exception of Indigenous hunters, as they are a protected species.

Any hopes that the first finding was an isolated incident were dashed Dec. 10, when the province announced a second CWD case, this one in the extreme southwestern corner of the province, again in a mule deer.

Control measures

Following the first finding in northwest Manitoba, the province immediately instituted a 10-kilometre control zone around the case.

A hunting ban was also introduced. The province argued that it was critical to control carcass movement during those first days, since the prions causing CWD can survive in a deer carcass and be accidentally spread.

Once control of the area was secured, the province opened up deer hunting for a limited two-week season for local hunters. Manitoba’s Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Scott Zaari, said about 150 permits were requested.

Mandatory CWD testing was implemented for any cervid taken out of that zone. Much of the control zone was already within Manitoba’s CWD hunter surveillance area, a strip stretching the length of the Saskatchewan border until just south of Flin Flon and bulging out around Riding Mountain National Park. The province has long required any deer taken out of that surveillance area to be tested for CWD.

“This approach was staged,” Zaari said. “It wasn’t any regulatory hammer of government coming in and saying, ‘thou shalt do this.’ This is two weeks of door-to-door consultation between the wildlife and fisheries branch team and landowners.”

The province is now working to depopulate mule deer in the control zone. Talks with landowners have granted the team access to the majority of required land, Zaari noted. The goal, he says, is to draw the population down as much as possible.

Tests both from the limited hunting season and mule deer depopulation will give context on how far and deeply the disease has spread into the area.

“We do not know the history of that mule deer in terms of its movements, so we base what we know in terms of the host range of a mule deer, and that’s what created our 10-kilometre buffer area,” Zaari said. “In that, we can only assume at this point, until we know more from testing, that other animals would have been exposed in that area.”

Increased scrutiny is also on the region around the second finding. Zaari says his office is currently engaged in tracking and ensuring that they receive any hunter samples out of that area for testing.

Most of the attention so far, however, has been on the first case in the northwest.

“The reality is that we’ve got all of our resources committed to Case 1, and once the operational aspects of that are complete, yes, we will be moving over to Case 2,” he said. “Of course, it starts with us understanding what’s going on in that area, so we’ll likely replicate similar things like initiating hunter-collected samples.”

Decisions on control measures will be made from there, he said, and may or may not look similar to what’s happening now around Lake of the Prairies.

Zaari expects that switch in focus before the end of the year.

Chris Heald, executive director of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, says they have been consulting with the province on the measures.

“We’ve been double-checking with other jurisdictions and disease experts and different veterinarians and definitely the province is on the right track here (with) the cull,” he said.

He noted, however, that the organization would have liked to see mule deer control earlier, given the disease risk.

The federation has been receiving regular updates from the province and relaying them to its hunting members, he noted.

“Hunters will play an important part going forward once they have the sampling size done and find out what the disease spread is, if any,” Heald said.

Producers’ perspective

The second finding, and its location, means producers should assume that Manitoba is endemic with CWD when planning management, Thorleifson said.

That will mean little operational change for farmers raising elk for meat, he added, noting that biosecurity, good genetics, extensive herd records and testing requirements have long been in place already in the elk sector.

It is unclear, however, how much of a hit Manitoba’s elk sector will take on animals exported for trophy next year.

Certain U.S. states close the door to animals from a CWD-positive area, the elk sector has noted. CWD findings dodged the peak season for that corner of the industry this year, Thorleifson said, since bulls are moved when they are in hard antler in August.

The elk sector also has hopeful eyes on the University of Saskatchewan’s vaccine and infectious disease research centre, VIDO-InterVac, which in 2010 signed an agreement to develop a vaccine for CWD.

Longer term

Zaari also noted that the issue will stretch long past the initial control and depopulation measures. A long-term management strategy will be needed, he said, including conversations with the province of Saskatchewan.

“It isn’t all about deer depopulation,” he said. “There’s other avenues that we will take to make sure that we can maintain a long-term strategy beyond just being actively responsive to cases.”

The post Elk producers say CWD span concerning appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In a media release announcing the case, officials said it was found near Lake of the Prairies as part of the province’s wildlife health surveillance program. It was in a male mule deer, which was observed in an “unhealthy state” and euthanized Oct. 14 then subsequently tested.

The government noted ongoing surveillance efforts by the game ranching sector.

“The elk farming industry has ongoing CWD surveillance and there have been no reported cases in farmed animals in Manitoba,” the release read. “CWD does not infect cattle or other domesticated animals.”

Because other animals in the area may have CWD, a hunting ban in the area for deer, moose, caribou and elk is coming into immediate effect, to prevent its spread through the transportation of diseased carcasses. The final boundaries are still being determined but the media release said it will “… initially include at least a portion of Game Hunting Area (GHA) 22.”

CWD is an incurable fatal disease that affects members of the deer family, including white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose and caribou. Animals infected with CWD may appear healthy until the later stages of the disease, and while CWD is not known as a human health risk, meat from a CWD infected animal is not recommended for consumption.

“In order to protect their health, hunters active in areas where CWD has been detected should have their harvested animal tested, practise safe carcass handling protocols and avoid consumption of any animal that has tested positive for CWD,” the province noted in the release.

CWD has been known to infect animals in Saskatchewan, Alberta and 24 states. Manitoba has had a prevention and surveillance strategy that included reporting and testing requirements for CWD, and made it illegal to bring certain unprocessed meat into Manitoba.

The province has begun to plan for additional CWD surveillance actions in the area surrounding this finding and will include stakeholders such as First Nations, Métis and other groups who need to be aware.

The post Chronic wasting disease discovered in Manitoba appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The province said Thursday it has amended regulations under its Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act that will ban anyone from importing live, captive cervids into Ontario “with some exceptions.”

Any of those exceptions will need a permit from the provincial natural resources and forestry ministry (MNRF). To get that, the cervids must have “fully certified status” from a CWD herd certification program and may only be imported from jurisdictions free from CWD during the six-year period up to the date they’re moved.

Imported cervids must either be headed for slaughter, in transit through the province in a sealed vehicle, or en route to a captive herd facility that meets biosecurity rules.

The new rules also prohibit people from moving live cervids from one part of Ontario to another — again, with “some exceptions,” such as for slaughter, export or veterinary care, or for livestock shows where the cervids have no contact with other animals. Otherwise, the animals being moved will need an MNRF permit.

The rules announced Thursday also expand the province’s ban on the use or possession of lures, scents or attractants made from cervid parts such as urine, feces, blood or gland oils. The new amendments will ban those products for “any purpose,” not just hunting.

The rules also expand the province’s ban on import of “high-risk” parts of cervids that were hunted in other jurisdictions.

People may only bring in “butchered, deboned and packaged” meat, finished taxidermy mounts, tanned hides and skull plates and antlers from which all tissue has been removed — and in those cases, only from animals that haven’t tested positive for CWD. Anyone who later learns his or her cervid products came from a CWD-positive animal must notify the MNRF and dispose of the products accordingly.

The amendments were filed Wednesday, following public consultations than ran from mid-July through August. All the new rules come into effect Jan. 1, 2021.

CWD is one of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) family of fatal nervous system diseases such as BSE in cattle, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people. The disease is federally reportable in Canada, meaning any and all suspected cases must be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

In Canada, CWD has been found mainly in deer and elk populations — both wild and farmed — in Saskatchewan and Alberta, along with “sporadic” confirmed cases in wild moose, according to CFIA. CWD in 2018 also turned up in a farmed herd of red deer in Quebec’s Laurentides region.

“While it has not been detected in Ontario, it is important to remain vigilant,” the Ontario government said Thursday, noting the infected Quebec herd was near the Ontario border and CWD has also been found in all five U.S. states that border Ontario.

Evidence suggests the infectious abnormally-folded proteins, or prions, that cause CWD can pass between cervids by direct contact or through contaminated feed, soil, and/or water sources with saliva, urine and/or feces from infected animals.

No evidence has yet shown CWD can affect humans, but the World Health Organization and other such bodies recommend against eating meat or consuming any products from animals known to be infected with TSEs.

Conservation officials in neighbouring Manitoba have also urged hunters not to shoot animals that look sick. If a hunter shoots a deer or elk that appears unhealthy and/or extremely thin, its carcass should not be field dressed. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Ontario to limit imports, transport of live elk, deer appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Canada’s voluntary Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Herd Certification Program will now accept test results from American labs. Results can now come from labs certified under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, rather than requiring all slaughtered animals (including those processed in the U.S.) to have test results from a CFIA-accredited facility, the CFIA said Nov. 3.

Elk producers enrolled in the CFIA program are required to test 100 per cent of regularly slaughtered animals, something that was a challenge if elk were being processed in the U.S.

Overlaid on top of provincial slaughter test requirements, testing for the fatal nervous system disease has gradually increased year to year under the national herd certification program.

While the program always required testing for on-farm deaths and emergency slaughter — slaughter arranged within two weeks of the actual kill — the program included no additional testing requirement when first introduced. As of January 2018, the CFIA began requiring that 50 per cent of all enrolled animals sent for regular slaughter would have to be tested. In 2019, that increased to 75 per cent, until finally this year the program required tests for all cervids headed to the abattoir.

“The problem became that in some instances, these animals were not being slaughtered in Canada. They were being slaughtered in the U.S.,” said Corlena Patterson, executive director of the Canadian Sheep Federation.

The Canadian Sheep Federation is tapped by the CFIA to administer the CWD Herd Certification Program for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec.

“Oftentimes, the exporter, or the person who owned the animals as they were being exported and going to slaughter, did not accompany the shipment of animals and it became a little bit difficult to get those slaughters sampled and to understand which labs could conduct them and get them back to ourselves, as the program administrators, to make sure they had all been sampled,” she said.

It is not immediately clear how many animals, and how many elk producers were impacted by that scenario.

“For our enrolled producers, it wasn’t a huge number,” Patterson said, “but I do understand in some jurisdictions where the program runs, that accounted for quite a number of the animals being slaughtered.”

Other producers, who were not enrolled, would not have been required to report any test results to the CFIA program, she also added.

Only two Manitoba herds are cur­rently enrolled in the program, accord­ing to information from the Can­adian Sheep Federation, “and their target market is not the U.S. market for slaughter,” Patterson said.

Patterson noted, however, that the CFIA had also changed how CWD compensation and federal support was managed in 2018 to hinge on enrolment. Enrolment is also, Patterson said, a common requirement for animals bound for the United States as breeding stock.

While participation in the program remains voluntary, as of April 2018 producers had to be enrolled with the CWD Herd Certification Program if they wanted to be compensated for animals destroyed as part of CWD control. Nor would the CFIA issue orders to destroy animals as part of CWD control to non-enrolled farms, although they would continue to track every case they were made aware of.

At the time, the CFIA cited the general futility of efforts to totally eliminate CWD, given its foothold in wild deer populations.

The 2018 changes caused consternations among elk producers, who argued certification was difficult to both get and maintain and also objected to what they saw as potential gaps in disease control, given the cease on destruction orders for non-enrolled farms.

The CWD Herd Certification Program National Standards have been consistently updated annually. The CFIA has said that 2020 standards are finalized and will come into effect Dec. 31 this year.

The post U.S. tests OK for CFIA chronic wasting disease certification appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

As of April 1, producers who want federal help with CWD are going to have to be part of the CFIA’s Voluntary Herd Certification Program. They’ll only be compensated for destroyed animals if they are registered with the program.

The agency says rules need to be tightened after years of effort have failed to eliminate the disease from Alberta and Saskatchewan. The two provinces are the only places in Canada to test positive for the disease and new cases continue to be found in both wild and farmed herds. Four herds tested positive in 2017, all in Saskatchewan.

With several cases inching close to the border with Manitoba, this province has been on guard against the CWD for years. Manitoba Sustainable Development has set aside a CWD surveillance zone along the provincial border and parts of western Manitoba. Any deer or elk hunted in this region must be submitted for testing each hunting season and there are limits to transporting harvested game, the use of some hunting aids, and importing cervids to the province.

Volunteer

The CFIA’s Dr. Alex McIsaac says disease tracking will happen for every case, regardless of whether the farmer is registered. The agency will not, however, order animals destroyed or pay out the farmer for any loss unless they are part of the Voluntary Herd Certification Program.

Response for unregistered farms will depend on the farmer or, in some cases, provincial rules, McIsaac said. Farmers with CWD will still be able to ship animals for slaughter.

McIsaac says those positive, unregistered animals are unlikely to spur an outbreak even without CFIA response.

“The animals are off the property and they’ll get disposed of properly at slaughter and that’s the end of it,” he said, adding that the CFIA has a protocol for CWD-positive animals to go to slaughter.

Producers looking for program details will have to look further than the CFIA’s main CWD website.

Standards are published under the Accredited Veterinarian’s Manual, also available online, McIsaac stressed.

Producers will need at least five years to rise through the program and become fully certified. Each year will come with a new level of certification. New animals or embryos must come from a farm with an equal rating, or the entire farm gets moved down to match the new arrivals.

The program covers deadstock testing for all animals older than a year.

Animals cannot be tested live for the disease, although both industry and government are working to develop a live test.

Manitoba already requires all mature elk and farmed deer to be tested after death. The program, however, will add a mandatory third-party inventory for the first two years, plus every three years afterward. An accredited veterinarian will administer the program, as well as submit a yearly inventory report, including identified animals, which animals entered or left the farm, destinations, certification status of any farm the producer got animals from, deaths and escapes and CWB lab results.

“The report must account for every cervid over 12 months of age that has died, and must state that all the records that the owner is required to keep have been examined and found satisfactory,” the CFIA says.

Regular herd veterinarians can get accredited through the CFIA district offices, McIsaac said. The veterinarian plays a larger role in the new system and will be needed for more time on farm, something McIsaac admits will raise costs for producers.

“The biggest thing is the biosecurity measures,” McIsaac said. “That is the biggest change in all this.”

Producers displeased

The new policy has been met with dismay from Manitoba’s elk industry.

Ian Thorleifson, president of the Manitoba Elk Growers Association, says they support a robust monitoring system, but called the CFIA changes, “poorly conceived.”

“We consulted with CFIA for many years looking for improvements to the program and were not able to come up with significant improvements beyond what we were doing at the time,” he said. “We had the herd certification program in place. I think that we’re very supportive of the herd certification program, but they have made it extremely difficult, and especially difficult for people who are in areas where CWD has never been diagnosed.”

Thorleifson said program requirements make it difficult to get and remain certified. He has also taken exception to the rule that a producer must be part of the program if the CFIA is to intervene or compensate the farmer. The result, he fears, might create a foothold for the disease in provinces like Manitoba, should a farm not be registered, contract CWD and then continue to operate.

“You have a farm that is not participating in the herd certification program. Then, it comes down with a CWD positive for whatever reason, there could be a variety of reasons, and CFIA says, ‘No, (we’re) not going to do anything about it.’ Then you’ve got a naive province with a disease on a farm, no evidence of where it came from and the possibility of it spreading to elsewhere, and we really don’t think that’s good management,” he said.

Too rigid

John Eisner of Swan Valley Elk Ranch also argued that producers may lose certification, not due to negligence, but from chance, if an animal is lost.

The program exempts producers from submitting heads if an animal is lost to fire, theft, predation where the head is gone or “any other reason or circumstance over which the owner could not reasonably be expected to have control, resulting in the destruction or disappearance of the body, such as a flood.”

Those may not cover all scenarios, Eisner said. He, himself, has had animals go missing without explanation.

He has not decided whether to join the certification program.

“I really agree with a good solid program and I think Manitoba has it,” he said.

The Manitoba Elk Growers Association says April is still too soon for regulations to be put in play. Thorleifson also pointed to research looking for a viable live test. Thorleifson would like to see those tests in place before changes like the ones proposed by the CFIA.

“For them to impose those changes and drop CWD management, to a certain extent, into the lap of the province, we think is inappropriate and unfair and, again, poorly considered,” he said. “I think there should have been a lot more discussion between the provinces and various stakeholders with CFIA about these particular changes.”

CFIA consulted with stakeholders through 2016. Thorleifson admits that his organization has been in discussion with the CFIA for years, but says they saw little interaction after changes were proposed.

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The provincial government recently opened a public comment period, running until Jan. 19, on a list of changes it proposes to make to various hunting and trapping regulations between April this year and the end of March 2020.

Among the proposed new rules is a ban on “any part or derivative of a deer, elk, moose or caribou, sourced from outside B.C., to be used for the purpose of hunting or trapping.”

CWD is a member of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) family of diseases such as BSE in cattle, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people.

B.C.’s Wildlife Health Program has monitored for CWD since 2002 and has yet to find an infected animal in the province, the government said, noting CWD has been seen in Alberta and Saskatchewan and is known to be “moving west toward the B.C. border.”

The infectious abnormally-folded proteins, or prions, that cause CWD are present in tissues and “biological materials” from infected cervids, particularly in body fluids such as urine, the B.C. government said in a proposal document.

Urine and other such materials are used to make attractants for use by hunters, and are “frequently” collected from farmed cervids in jurisdictions outside the province, the government said.

The impact of CWD on native cervid populations and the disease’s spread have already led “several” jurisdictions elsewhere to set up bans on such products containing biological material from cervids.

“There is little regulation in the production of these materials, they are usually available without labelled information on their origin and cervid farms in two Canadian provinces and 21 U.S. states are known to be or have been infected by CWD,” the provincial government said.

The province described such attractants as “a potential route of introducing CWD to new jurisdictions, including B.C.”

Evidence suggests CWD prions can pass from animal to animal by direct contact or through contaminated feed, soil, and/or water sources with saliva, urine and/or feces from infected animals.

No evidence has yet shown CWD can affect humans, but the World Health Organization and other such bodies recommend against eating meat or consuming any products from animals known to be infected with any TSE disease.

CWD-infected deer and elk show abnormal behaviour accompanied by progressive weight loss. In later stages, animals with CWD show signs of extreme weight loss, repetitive behaviour, drowsiness, lack of co-ordination, drooping head and ears, drooling and increased drinking and urination.

Conservation officials in Manitoba — another province which has yet to turn up any cases of CWD — urge hunters not to shoot animals that appear to be sick. If a hunter does shoot a deer or elk that appears unhealthy and/or extremely thin, its carcass should not be field dressed. — AGCanada.com Network

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One of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) family of nervous system diseases, such as BSE in cattle and scrapie in sheep, CWD has turned up in 10 elk and deer herds in Saskatchewan and three elk herds in Alberta since the beginning of 2015 alone.

Efforts to eradicate CWD in Canada’s farmed cervids “have not been successful,” the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Friday, describing disease management as “a shared responsibility.”

Thus, the agency said Friday, it’s rethinking the eradication policy it’s had in place since 2000, to instead “reduce the risk of the disease spreading by encouraging producers to adopt strong risk mitigation measures.”

Starting Dec. 31 this year, before a producer can get a CFIA response — which includes quarantine, herd depopulation and compensation — he or she will have to be enrolled in a voluntary herd certification program (VHCP), CFIA said Friday.

A VHCP requires enrolled producers to set up specific biosecurity measures and to comply with limits on what animals may be added to a herd, as well as ongoing surveillance testing of mature deadstock.

National standards have been in place since 2002 for VHCPs, which in Canada are overseen by third-party administrators under CFIA oversight. Those standards are being updated, the agency said, following consultations with the industry in 2015 and 2016.

A “transition period” will run throughout 2018 to give producers time to enroll in and complete 12 months in a VHCP, CFIA said Friday.

During 2018, cervid ranchers should contact the regional administrator of the VHCP available in their area and consider enrolling in a program, CFIA said.

From Jan. 1, 2019 on, CFIA’s response will only apply if the affected producer has been VHCP-compliant for at least 12 months, the agency said Friday.

According to the North American Elk Breeders Association in a separate statement Friday, any CWD-positive farms not in a VHCP under the new system would have “no movement restrictions or depopulation orders” but would not be eligible for any compensation either.

CWD-affected farms not in a program would have to manage the disease using a test-and-cull approach, the association said.

Found so far only in captive and wild cervids in North America, Korea and Norway, CWD was first seen in Canada on a Saskatchewan elk farm in 1996 and has since been “routinely” detected in Saskatchewan, with a few cases in Alberta, CFIA said.

All cervids slaughtered in abattoirs in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and Yukon are required by law to be tested for CWD. Only carcasses that test negative are used for meat in those jurisdictions.

A federally reportable disease in Canada, CWD is known to only naturally affect members of the cervid family, with no direct evidence yet to suggest it could be transmitted to people or other species.

It’s still recommended, though, that people not use or consume any tissues that may have come from a known CWD-infected animal. — AGCanada.com Network

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