IOWA BOWHUNTER FALL 2023/WINTER 2024

DNR NEWS WINTER ISSUE (Cont.)

southeast Iowa was the area of with the highest outbreak. Drought conditions and higher than normal late season temperatures allowed the EHD outbreak to have occurred later in the season than what would be considered normal. EHD tends to show up in one area of the state at a time and it can be several years before it will show up in that area again due to some immunity build up in the whitetails. These outbreaks at the county level are not equal across the landscape. All sexes and ages of deer are susceptible to the outbreak. Although a good topic of discussion, EHD outbreaks are generally not of great concern to the overall deer population. CWD - C hronic W asting D isease Nothing caused more groaning among deer hunters than these three letters. I am amazed after 20 years of talking about it I still have people asking about this “new” disease their buddies told them about. Chronic wasting disease has been detected in Iowa for over a decade and in the Midwest for longer. There is a lot of available information that I won’t go into here but a few of the basics are: 1. C WD is caused by a misfolded prion in the brain of the animal (Deer species) 2. C WD is in the same disease family as BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) (Mad Cow Disease). 3. CWD can progress in as short as 18 months to a stage were the animal loses the ability to function. (stumbling, drooling, emaciation, death). 4. Y ou cannot tell if a healthy looking deer has CWD without a clinical test. 5. There is no known cure for CWD in deer. 6. The Center for Disease Control and the

So what does this mean for the deer herd? Eventually the coarse will be that a high percentage of deer in an area will have the disease. It will be spread from deer to deer so higher deer densities will most likely have a higher infection rate. Younger deer will be infected sooner in the life cycle meaning they likely will never reach an older age class. The best method to help control the spread of CWD is to not move deer parts out of an endemic area, don’t place any feed or mineral that congregate deer and to keep deer densities at a lower biological carrying capacity. The Iowa DNR collects samples of deer from every county in Iowa for the detection of the disease. If the disease is detected in an area then voluntary alternative hunting practices can be implemented to try and mitigate the spread of the disease. Hunters can help by providing lymph node samples from harvested animals and continuing to harvest deer. Once the DNR quotas for surveillance have been reached in an area a hunter may still be able to submit samples for testing through the Iowa State veterinary diagnostic lab with a self submission process. The Iowa DNR has developed a CWD dashboard on the Iowa DNR webpage to help people track the sampling and detection process across the State. Hunters are encouraged to work with their local biologist early in the deer season. So EHD and CWD are not the same disease. They have very different development cycles and impact Iowa deer in very different ways. Please continue to stay educated and up to date on information through the Iowa DNR web page. I always enjoy talking about Iowa’s forest wildlife species. I am available for your questions anytime. Contact me at james.coffey@dnr.iowa.gov or send your questions to the IBA editor and I will do my best to answer them.

World Health Organization recommend that NO deer testing positive for CWD be consumed by humans.

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IOWA BOWHUNTERS ASSOCIATION

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