The fight against Chronic Wasting Disease

 

Hello friends,

This week I flew recon with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and had a very interesting day as well as learned a lot! I flew aboard a Cessna 185 “Skywagon” with Bill Ishmael who is the area wildlife supervisor for six southwestern Wisconsin counties and Meg Zeigler who is wildlife technician with WDNR.

Luke Wuest who is a career pilot with the WDNR flew the Skywagon as we spent the day flying over DMUs 73E and 70A which range from Black Earth to Fennimore.
The goal for Bill Ishmael and his staff is to conduct an aerial deer count, which is done by both fixed wing aircraft and helicopter over the entire CWD Zone.

The reason that this is done is to help determine the prevalence of the disease, and how changing hunting seasons have affected the deer population.

 

Tuesday, January 19th
High, 33, low 7

 

I remember when the bombshell called Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) was discovered in Wisconsin. For the first time that I knew of, our states nationally recognized deer herd was not, receiving positive attention! I went to some of the public meetings held in Mount Horeb and even took part in a herd reduction hunt.

The first positive test came from a deer that was harvested in the fall of 2001 and today while flying transects in the 185, I saw where that deer was killed.

We flew two-mile wide transects the length of each DMU and only deer that were within a quarter mile of each side of the aircraft were counted.

Further north, a helicopter with two DNR wildlife technicians and a pilot was also counting deer and their research was done by working a square mile at a time and writing on a map where each deer is located. The helicopter is able to hover and fly much lower which gives a more accurate count. The airplane is able to cover more miles.

A math equation is done using the numbers from the chopper and the aircraft deer counts, which enables the DNR staff to determine the deer per square mile on each transect. The same transects are flown each winter and the requirements to do the job properly are observant counters and snow on the ground.

I learned first hand after a two-hour fog delay how important a trained eye is when it comes to adequately counting deer from the air in an aircraft moving at about 90 miles per hour.

Meg Zeigler was counting from one side of the plane and Bill Ishmael was working the other side. At the end of each transect, Meg would tell Bill how many deer she had counted and then Bill Ishmael would write that number down.

I was sitting directly behind Bill Ishmael and was in awe of the huge amount of turkey the beautiful topography and how good Ishmael, Zeigler and Wuest were at spotting deer. The deer were generally lying down or standing in the forests and almost always on the south facing slopes.

I was well aware during the entire day that I was in the same aircraft with WDNR field staff that have been fighting CWD in Wisconsin since it’s discovery back in the winter of 2002.

I have paid attention to this battle here in Wisconsin and out west and know that we are in a fight that will never really come to an end and that our most realistic hope is to contain it and keep the percentage of deer that have CWD down to a minimum where it already is.

Today, I was flown over an area with the highest incident rate in the zone and so far there have been 31 positive tests in a square mile.

Something that I have noticed the last couple of years is that many people outside of the CWD zone do not seem to have much of an interest in CWD anymore.

Through a lot of research in both Wisconsin and western states it has been determined that close contact, specifically, infected deer transmitting their saliva to unaffected deer can cause the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease. The highest rate of CWD in Wisconsin is 14 percent of tested deer in one section of the zone.

There are now areas in the western states where the rate is up to 50 percent.

For myself, today was an interesting day in the air over a beautiful part of Wisconsin.

When I looked down over what ended up being 540 miles of flown transects and hundreds of deer spotted. I had two thoughts, pity for the landowners, hunters and deer and a prayer that CWD can be contained and does not spread to my backyard.

Vigilance is a must! Sunset