FWP voting on Chester CWD hunt, Tester sponsors bill

Havre Daily News staff

A flurry of activity is happening due to the discovery of chronic wasting disease in wildlife in Montana, including a deer harvested in north-central Montana testing positive for the contagious, degenerative disease, including Sen. Jon Tester sponsoring a bill in the Senate to try to fight the spread of the disease.

Montana's Fish and Wildlife Commission was scheduled to hold a conference call today at 1 p.m. to make a decision on holding a special hunt in the Sage Creek area to determine how widespread the disease is in this area. That is followed by meetings at 7 in Chester and Havre to answer questions about the disease and what FWP will do in response to its discovery.

The Chester deer and six deer harvested south of Billings that also tested positive is the first discovery of the disease in Montana wildlife. It was detected in elk in a game farm near Phillipsburg in 1999.

FWP has started a hunt in Carbon County to determine how widespread the disease is in that area. It announced Monday that 107 deer already had been harvested.

The proposed hunt in north-central Montana has the objective of determining disease prevalence and distribution. For the Sage Creek Special CWD Hunt, FWP is proposing to sell 335 deer B licenses in an effort to harvest 135 mule deer. Of those 335 licenses, 60 would be either sex and 275 would be antlerless. Licenses would go on sale Dec. 26 and the hunt would begin Jan. 6 and last through Feb. 15 or until the sample objectives were reached.

The Sage Creek Special CWD Hunt area is about 226 square miles in size and just east of the Sweet Grass Hills. It abuts to the Canadian border. The hunt area is primarily comprised of private land. As outlined in the draft plan, FWP has assembled an incident command team to respond to the discovery.

CWD is a progressive, fatal neurological disease that effects deer, elk and moose. It is not known to infect humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend not consuming animals that test positive for CWD. The CDC also recommends getting deer, elk or moose from CWD positive areas tested prior to consumption.

If animals contract the disease, they might not show symptoms for more than a year. Symptoms can include drastic weight loss, stumbling, listlessness and other neurologic symptoms. CWD can affect animals of all ages and some infected animals may die without ever developing the disease. CWD is fatal to animals and there are no treatments or vaccines.

Tester's bill, which he introduced Tuesday, would authorize $60 million to help state and tribal wildlife management agencies stop the spread of chronic wasting disease. These funds create new research grants to better understand the disease, allow states and tribes to develop and implement management plans, and establish a rapid response for newly infected areas, his release about the bill said.

"In Montana, hunting is a part of our way of life because it helps provide our families with food, manage our wildlife, and sustain rural economies," Tester said in the release.  "It is critically important that we stop the spread of chronic wasting disease before it diminishes our big-game herds and undercuts our outdoor economy."  

His release said Wyoming has seen a 21 percent annual decline in the mule deer population and a 10 percent decline in the white-tail deer population due to the disease.

Representatives of Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Commission, Montana Wildlife Federation, Western Lands for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance and National Wildlife Federation all praised Tester for sponsoring the bill.

Chronic wasting disease has been prevalent in 21 states across the west, infecting white-tail and mule deer, elk, and moose-including in multiple states that border Montana, the release said. Tester's bill will immediately provide wildlife management agencies with resources to stop the spread of the disease that could impact big-game hunting and diminish Montana's growing outdoor economy.

The FWP meetings about chronic wasting disease are both starting at 7 p.m. The Chester meeting will be in the town's high school auditorium, 511 Main St. The Havre meeting will be at the Hill County Electric Coop, 2121 U.S. Highway 2 NW.

At both meetings, FWP officials will present a background on the disease, what is known about the disease along the state's northern border and what the department's CWD draft management plan identifies for actions and management in the future.

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Online: Sen. Jon Tester's Chronic Wasting Dis ease Support for States Act: https://www.tester.senate.gov/files/Legislation/RYA17A3.pdf.