Aug. 16, 2019
Arizona Game and Fish Department​​​​​​​


Arizona Game and Fish Department enacting changes to protect Arizona’s elk and deer from Chronic Wasting Disease


PINETOP, Ariz — Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is present in several neighboring states, but not yet in Arizona. The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) is hoping to keep it that way by enacting rules regarding the possession and transportation of elk and deer into Arizona by successful out-of-state hunters.

CWD is a neurological disease found in cervids, including deer, elk, moose, caribou, and reindeer. The disease attacks the brains of infected animals and is always fatal. CWD can be spread by direct animal-to-animal contact and indirectly from the soil, plants, or contaminated surfaces to an animal. Transmission is most common via saliva, feces, or the decomposing carcass of an infected animal.

There have been no cases of CWD in humans, but public health officials do not recommend that humans consume meat products from animals testing positive for CWD. This disease has not been detected in Arizona’s deer or elk, but it is present in 26 states, including Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, and four Canadian provinces.

Hunters from out of state may only bring the following animal parts into Arizona according to the following requirements of Arizona Game and Commission Rule R12-4-305:

*Meat that is boneless or has been commercially butchered and packaged

*Finished taxidermy mounts

*Skulls that are mounted or clean skulls/skull plates without any meat or soft tissue

*Antlers that are hard-horned or velvet antlers that have been taxidermied

*Hides without any meat or soft tissue

*Teeth without any tissue attached


Out-of-state hunters coming to hunt in Arizona should check with their state about importation rules. They can also check the CWD alliance website: http://cwd-info.org/ and select the state from the map.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department has increased surveillance for CWD and encourages hunters to bring recently harvested deer or elk to any AZGFD office during business hours for department personnel to collect a tissue sample for CWD testing. Hunters that successfully harvest in Units 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, 27, 28,and 31 are especially encouraged to submit heads for testing because these units are close to New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, where CWD has been detected in deer and elk. For best results, the head should be kept cool and submitted within a day of harvest.

Anyone found in possession of illegally imported wildlife parts is subject to law enforcement action and the wildlife parts may be seized and destroyed.

If CWD is found in Arizona, early detection will increase the chance for successful management. For more information on CWD, visit www.azgfd.com/wildlife/diseases/.

Good for Arizona. I live at the very western edge of Unit 34 here in New Mexico. This large, elk-rich unit is CWD positive, and you see tissue (lymph node) collection stations along the highways in the Sacramento mountains during hunting seasons. It's nothing to fool with.
And if your buck or bull turns out to be CWD positive, it is still controversial as to whether the most carefully butchered meat is safe for human consumption.
Current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control is DO NOT EAT.
https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/prevention.html

If states really want to stop the disease from coming in then stop allowing live/farm deer from being brought in.

I believe CO has killed all deer and elk from such operations. Elk ranch 20 mi west of here they did. Back to barren hills now. Seems like they didn't find any CWD among their animals. Cost around 1/4 mil to buy the guy out and shut him down. Might be worth it IF his animals had been infected. Kind of a waste when they were clean and still all destroyed and buried.

From what I've read nearly every state that tests and finds CWD will give a replacement hunting license and advise to destroy the meat.

George

George, my youngest brother is an attorney for the Fish and Wildlife Service out of Denver. Early on, his job was negotiating those buyouts and the utter destruction by burning and burial of the infected herds. It was a horrible thing to be involved with, and heartbreaking. But yes, the source was the ranches and the unnatural concentration of often imported animals that made it easier for CWD to be transmitted. That damned prion can live in the soil for decades -- and even be taken up by plants. Geez!

So Center for Disease control recommends NOT eating the meat from a tested and found to be infected animal. All well and good BUT is that then considered waste of game meat by state game departments who if the catch you doing that typically issue a ticket for that? The fact that it might be dangerous to consume, well why else would one hunt, if not to use the resource in a positive way by consuming the meat. The fact that it may or may not have antlers that are worth saving and making into a mount are secondary, right, well not according to all these tv shows and magazine articles and well know hunters who primarily talk about antler or horn or whatever the measure used for "trophy" animals harvested.

I think if you shoot it, suspect the deer/elk is infected, you call fish and game, show it to them, they take the corpse for testing you will be okay.

If you simply shoot, leave and do not contact Fish and Game, then it is your backside.

Usually fish and game will take lymph nodes from beneath the lower jaw and test those. You get the report in the mail and no, it is not considered wasting game if the game has chronic wasting disease prions in its flesh.
Here is how Wyoming does it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jpvxatk0gw

Last I read about it. They test the brain and
spine tissues. This is the first I've seen of
lymph from a jaw. Sure they're in that area.
we all have them in that area. Good to learn
this too.

Bill: this elk "ranch" at Penrose didn't turn up
a single animal that was infected. I have no idea about other places. Haven't seen the reports on any others.

I did read in a Pa. Wildlife mag the other day where a deer tested positive from one of their
deer farms. They were going to test a bunch more wild deer around the area before making any decisions about cleaning the place out.

George

First of this year or they very last of 2018, I posted about CWD outbreaks in wild deerin previously CWD free counties each of those outbreaks were traced back to captivite, farm breed deer being shipped into those counties.

This was in OH.

LH, lots of it in Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado. Darned shame.
Why do they allow these operations?
https://madison.com/ct/news/lo...36-633f1c982c44.html

There is a small deer farm up from my home. You drive buy and see the wild deer noising and licking the captive deer through fence.

KY is currently CWD free. It is just a matter of time a deer will be shipped in and the fire started.

Some states require a double fence about 15ft apart to keep wild deer and captive deer from physical contact.