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News you can use
Fish, Wildlife and Parks Game Warden Haden Hussey collects information from a hunter while sampling for Chronic Wasting Disease Sunday outside of Havre. As hunters arrived at the check station, FWP workers would get some basic information before cutting into the deer.
Wildlife Biologist Ryan Williamson pries open an elk's mouth while field tech Travis Roth holds it steady Sunday outside Havre. The FPW crew checked the molars of each deer and elk to estimate an age of the animal.
Montana FPW Game Warden Haden Hussey looks at deer in the bed of a truck Sunday, November 25, 2018 outside of Havre, Mont. Hussey has been working in Montana since the spring.
Ryan Williamson pries a front tooth out of a deer head Sunday, November 25, 2018 outside of Havre, Mont. Scientists are able to accurately determine the age of a deer by looking inside a tooth and using a technique similar to counting the rings on a tree stump.
Jim Vaughan, of Lake County, holds the antler of a bull elk killed by Rod Munson Sunday, November 25, 2018 outside of Havre, Mont. Only two elk came through the station Sunday morning.
Workers from FWP gather around a truck with three deer harvested by Nick Hill and Alice Flesch, of Clancy, Sunday, November 25, 2018 three miles east of Havre, Mont. Most hunters brought in only one or two deer, but the check station saw groups with over a dozen on Saturday.
Stephen Brown, of Havre, waits while wildlife biologist Ryan Williamson cuts into a deer Sunday, November 25, 2018 near Havre, Mont. The deer was shot by Stephen's son Tommy Brown.
Wildlife Biologist Ryan Williamson searches for the lymph nodes in the neck of a deer Sunday, November 25, 2018 near Havre, Mont. Chronic Wasting Disease would be detectable in the lymph nodes of any infected deer.
Field tech Travis Roth cuts into a buck to remove its lymph nodes Sunday, November 25, 2018 near Havre, Mont. Four FPW employees ran the Havre check station.
Sunday marked the final day of the 2018 general big game rifle hunting season in Montana. As hunters settled down in their favorite spots hoping for one last kill over the holiday weekend, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks employees were setting up shop at 16 different check stations around the state.
Since the beginning of the season in mid-October, FWP have used these check stations not only to log the different animals harvested by hunters, but to collect tissue samples as part of chronic wasting disease testing.
CWD is a progressive, infectious neurological disease that affects deer, elk and other members of the Cervidae family. The 100 percent fatal disease is caused by a prion that slowly degrades the brain and nervous system of a deer, causing the animal to lose coordination, become emaciated and slowly waste away.
While the disease is not known to spread to humans, it is casting a shadow over hunters and wildlife management officials because of its ability to silently infect and ultimately kill a huge portion of a given area's deer population.
FWP Wildlife Management Biologist Scott Hemmer said the disease is hard to track because symptoms do not begin to show for at least 16 months after a deer is infected. The only way to keep tabs on CWD is by collecting samples at the check stations that have dotted the state over the last month.
As hunters passed Sunday through the Havre checkpoint, which lies about six miles east of downtown Havre along U.S. Highway 2, many posed the same question; What should be done with the deer while awaiting test results?
"You can quarter your deer and just store it away in bags until you get the results," Hemmer told one hunter. If the test results are negative, "then you can go ahead and process it however you want."
To be safe, Hemmer said, positive or questionable animals should be disposed of and not consumed.
Prior to both testing or consumption, the dead deer need to be taken to the nearest testing location. While the checkpoint stations are closed for this season, they will likely be back for future seasons.
When a hunter brings their deer to a check point, a member of FWP takes down the hunter's information, including where the deer was harvested in order to accurately locate the source of any positive samples. Whether a hunter brings the whole deer or just its head, the field workers cut through the neck and dig around in search of the deer's lymph nodes, which are known to hold evidence of CWD in a sick animal. When the lymph nodes are identified and removed, they are cut in half. Part of each gland is for testing, and the other two pieces are stored away for an archive in case the tissue needs to be reexamined.
Hemmer said he will send the samples to a lab at Colorado State University on Tuesday to have them tested for the disease.
Testing takes about two to three weeks, and results are posted online as they come in. Any hunter with a CWD-positive deer will be contacted immediately by FWP.
With permission from the hunter, while sampling workers also cut back the lips of the animals to look for wear and tear on the molars to get an approximate age.
"It's not an exact science," FWP Wildlife Biologist Ryan Williamson said, but by examining the teeth he was able to roughly tell the age of each deer.
For more precise age determination, field workers also pulled a front tooth out of each deer. Scientists will be able to cut into the tooth and age the animal in a process that Williamson equated to counting the rings on the stump of a tree.
Collecting samples, much like field dressing, is not a clean job. Montana Game Warden Haden Hussey didn't seem to care much, diving into the work without gloves, ultimately soaking his hands in blood.
"I've cleaned enough deer in my life" to not be bothered by the blood, Hussey said.
Despite all the concern that the emergence of CWD in Montana is causing, the mood among hunters was positive on Sunday. One family from Kalispell arrived at the check station with multiple animals, an elk included, in the enclosed bed of their truck. When asked whose elk it was, 13-year-old Sam Nease proudly claimed it with a smile on his face.
"That one's mine," he exclaimed.
Nease said he has been hunting for years, but the cow was his first-ever elk. Because it was Sam's kill, his father made him crawl into the truck to pull out the quartered animal and show their tags to the FPW crew running the check.
Montana hunters have a right to be cautiously optimistic about CWD in their state. Aside from a case in 1999 where the disease was detected in an animal from an elk farm, the disease was not detected in Montana until positive animals were found in northern Liberty County and in Carbon County last year.
This year, another deer tested positive in Liberty County, this time in the southern part of the county. Blaine County also was added to the list of areas with animals testing positive.
But despite a new CWD-positive area being identified, Montana is relatively good at preventative measures, Williams said.
"Montana doesn't do baiting or feeding," he said, adding that the state is stricter on deer farms, which have been known to harbor the disease in other states.
By outlawing baiting, deer are less likely to congregate in the same area, he said, which helps prevent infected deer from coming into contact with other animals and transmitting the disease.
With the remote check stations now closed for the year, anybody wishing to turn in a last-minute sample will have to call or visit their nearest FWP regional office. A transportation restriction zone has been established on the Hi-Line, so hunters will need to be cautious of where they take their deer.
As the last remaining samples are collected and sent off to Colorado State, hunters and biologists alike will have to wait upward of three weeks before all tested deer are accounted for. Only then will FWP know how much the disease has spread over the last year. Once the results are in, officials will be able to take their next step in containing and minimizing the effects of chronic wasting disease.
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