Tony Young
Guest Columnist
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is looking to hunters to help monitor the state’s deer herd this coming season for chronic wasting disease, or CWD as it’s more commonly known. Any Florida hunter planning to hunt deer, moose or elk out of state this year needs to be aware of certain laws and regulations aimed at preventing CWD from entering our state.
What is CWD?
CWD belongs to a group of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Scientists still have much to learn about CWD, which appears to occur only in the deer family, but is believed to be caused by an abnormal protein called a prion.
Fatal CWD attacks the brains of infected cervids (mule deer, white-tailed deer, moose and elk), causing them to become emaciated, display abnormal behavior and lose control of bodily functions.
Warning signs of CWD hunters can look out for while in the field include deer that are extremely thin or appear sick, or those exhibiting odd behavior, such as excessive salivating or urinating, staggering, walking in circles, standing with a wide stance, head tremors, or deer found dead from unknown causes. If you see a deer that fits this description, call 866-CWD-WATCH (293-9282).
Transmission of CWD occurs by direct contact with bodily fluids (feces, urine or saliva) or through contact with a contaminated environment. In this second scenario, the prion stays in the environment, and may remain infectious for years.
The good news is, there’s no evidence that CWD can be transmitted to humans or livestock, and it’s not yet been found in Florida or any other southeastern state. But it’s going to take the help of all hunters and the FWC to keep it that way.
Currently the only practical method for diagnosing CWD is through analysis of brain-stem tissue or lymph nodes from dead deer. Therefore Florida’s more than 200,000 hunters can play an extremely important role in CWD surveillance by providing samples from harvested deer for testing.
How you can help
The goal of the FWC is to collect these samples throughout Florida, and it’s asking private landowners and hunting clubs to participate in this surveillance effort. Since 2002, the FWC has tested nearly 9,000 hunter-killed, road-killed and sick/diseased deer for CWD.
If you’d like to help, contact the FWC by calling the toll-free CWD Hotline at 866-CWD-WATCH (293-9282) for further information and to coordinate collection and pick-up of deer samples.
The primary objective of CWD management is to prevent it from entering our state, so we have adopted laws regulating the transport of harvested deer into Florida.