Chronic wasting disease remains concentrated in a limited area of Northwest Arkansas, but whether it is more or less prevalent than last year is unknown, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officials told the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission on Friday.
After 2,615 voluntary tests of deer and elk during the 2016-2017 hunting season across the state, only seven counties shared in the 87 positive results, according to the AGFC. Those counties were Newton, Searcy, Boone, Carroll, Pope, Madison and Marion. Of those 87 positive results, 86 were whitetailed deer and one was an elk.
Before that hunting season, the AGFC tested deer in Newton and Boone counties and found that 23 percent of the 266 animals were infected with the disease. Figures from the 2016-2017 hunting season indicate only 3 percent of deer statewide had the disease.
Testing for chronic wasting disease is again voluntary this hunting season, which began this month, said Jennifer Ballard, state wildlife veterinarian for AGFC.
Ballard said it's unclear whether chronic wasting disease's prevalence in Arkansas has peaked, but the likelihood of eradication of the disease is "virtually nonexistent," she told the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission.
The agency is focusing on management, education and encouraging hunters to test their game.
"We know [solutions] have to be long term," she said. "There are no quick fixes for CWD."
Chronic wasting disease is a degenerative brain disease most commonly found in the deer family. It is transmitted through contact, bodily fluids, soil and plants, among other means.
Research has not proven humans can contract the disease through the consumption of infected meat, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says meat from infected deer should not be eaten and hunters should have their deer or elk tested if they come from an area where the disease is known to exist.
Ballard, who runs the AGFC's new research and compliance division, presented the latest information to the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission a week after the AGFC was given the Ernest Thompson Seton Award from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies for its public outreach related to chronic wasting disease.
Commissioners congratulated the agency on the award, but asked several questions and expressed concerns about minimizing the disease in Arkansas.
Ballard said she would like to compare strains with other places that have had outbreaks of the disease and see whether it has changed. Unlike bacteria or viruses, she said, the prions that cause chronic wasting disease don't have DNA for researchers to study.
Commissioner Wesley Stites asked whether any bans existed on the processing of the central nervous tissue of infected animals, such as in other diseases. Ballard said she doesn't think AGFC could institute such a ban or that it is commonplace for harvested deer elsewhere.
Stites, a University of Arkansas, Fayetteville biochemistry professor who studies protein structure, doubted that anyone could stop chronic wasting disease and said it "will do damage for decades."
"There is not going to be a cure," he said. "It's not going to happen."
Avoiding the disease could be addressed through genetic engineering, which is a long way off, he said.
Sports on 09/23/2017