Becky Gillette – Arkansawyers rely on venison to have tasty meat in the freezer and reduce grocery bills, but discovery of Chronic Wasting Disease in elk and deer in the Buffalo River Valley has raised concerns about the future of deer hunting for food. CWD is always fatal, and has been found in 79 deer and three elk in the Buffalo River area recently.
A reader of the Eureka Springs Independent called to say local deer hunters are worried about consuming local venison, even though CWD has not yet been found in this area. The reader wanted to know if cooking venison at high temperatures would make it safe to eat.
William Craker, president of the Bull Shoals Urban Bow Hunters Association, said that while cooking meat to at least 145° for five minutes is always a good idea, CWD proteins are impossible to destroy with heat.
“Please let your hunters know that it is safe to eat the meat,” Craker said. “There is absolutely no evidence to show that CWD is transmissible to humans. The protein or actual prion responsible for CWD is concentrated in brain fluid, spinal fluid, and lymph glands located in the jaw of infected animals. It is better to avoid these areas when handling possible infected animals. There is no evidence of the protein being present in the meat tissue. I do, and will continue to, eat deer meat with no fear of CWD.”
Craker, who has a master’s degree in wildlife biology, recommends boning out all deer meat to avoid bone marrow. He said there is no way to know if elk, reintroduced in that area from 1981 to 1985, carried the disease here or not.
Initially that was the reasoning because it was discovered in Ponca, Ark., elk first. He said it is just as possible CWD was brought in from deer harvested from other states that have CWD. There are also a few wealthy landowner/hunters who have purchased deer from deer farms and introduced them to local herds in an effort to “improve trophy deer” here in Arkansas.
There is no evidence CWD originated with the elk, agreed Keith Stephens, chief of communications, Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AG&F).
“Anything is possible,” Stephens said, “but it is highly unlikely. The elk came from an area of Colorado that didn’t have CWD and still doesn’t have it. At last count we have just over six hundred elk in the Buffalo River area, and CWD has been found in only three. One of them was harvested by a hunter, and two others we sampled appeared to be sick.”
It can take years after exposure before you see any signs that a cervid (moose, elk and deer) can show signs of the disease. After initially finding CWD in Newton County, game officials were hoping it was isolated to a small herd of elk and that if they took down the entire herd, it might contain the disease. But finding CWD in 79 deer in Newton and Boone counties dashed those hopes.
“The prevalence rate was greater than we expected,” Stephens said. “We have expanded testing statewide. We are asking the public to contact us if they see a deer or elk hit by a car or one that may have recently died so we can pull a sample from those.”
Stephens said it is likely CWD will spread to other areas of the state. “We are the twenty-fourth state with CWD,” he said. “It is spreading eastward. Through the efforts of other agencies like ours, they still have deer hunting in those states. Deer hunting didn’t disappear. It is the same thing for Arkansas. We don’t expect it to end deer hunting. But you want to contain it because it is one hundred percent fatal and we don’t want to start seeing large numbers of deer dying across the state.”
AG&F recommends burying or incinerating remains. “Obviously, not a lot of folks have livestock incinerators, but don’t move it,” Stephens said. “If you are in the area where CWD is found, it is already infected and won’t change anything to put it back where you shot it. But we don’t want it moved out of that area. The reason why feeding is a concern in the wild is we don’t want to concentrate deer under a feeder where they are urinating and defecating, which are some of the main ways to transfer the disease between animals.”
To report sick or dead deer, including road kill, call (800) 482-9262.
Deer hunting accounts for an estimated $370.6 million in annual retail sales in Arkansas.