CSU launches new study on chronic wasting disease

By Stephen Clearheart Johnson
North Forty News

Livermore deer are in the sights of Tom Hobbs and his research team, who want to follow the animals' movements for five years.

The Colorado State University scientist and a strong phalanx of research assistants are armed with a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Their goal is to fill in the gaps in the existing knowledge of chronic wasting disease affecting deer, elk, moose, caribou and reindeer.

CWD is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy similar to scrapie in sheep and mad cow disease in cattle.

Northeastern Colorado seems to be the epicenter of this disease, first discovered about 12 years ago in local populations. It has now been identified in 11 states, two Canadian provinces and in Asia and Korea. Incidence of the disease ranges from 10 percent in mule deer to less than 1 percent in moose. It is not yet known if bighorn sheep can contract the malady.

Hobbs said that no one knows how long the disease has existed. He explained that the symptoms resemble simple starvation. His remarks were delivered to an audience of 60 or more local residents who gathered at the Livermore Community Hall on Nov. 9.

Hobbs said he believes the disease is transmitted through the environment via saliva, urine, feces and infected carcasses. In the first year of the study, he hopes to capture 80 to 100 deer, and then recapture them the next year for follow-up studies. In following years, he may study up to 200 deer depending on his ability to monitor them and the recapture rate.

Deer that die during the studies will be located by weekly monitoring of radio collars. The carcasses will then be further tested for the presence of the disease and cause of death identified, especially in relation to predation or hunting.

The primary purpose of the study is to develop a predictive model that represents how the disease spreads. Included in this will be details of the mechanism of transmission, research on how an individual's genetic makeup relates to risk of infection and efforts to determine how many susceptible individuals are infected by a single one.

Hobbs intends to move captured deer no more than one mile to a testing site. He will release them unharmed and do no culling or harvesting or purposeful infection of the animal. The annual capture will take four to five days of flying time. Hobbs noted that the contracted helicopter company has a track record of losing less than 1 percent of captured animals.

Hobbs is looking for landowners willing to participate in the study. He is also seeking to form an advisory committee of six to eight landowners, and he is committed to maintaining a close working relationship with the community through informal contacts and semiannual community meetings. He said he intends to engage the students of the Livermore Elementary School through science outreach including telemetry monitoring by the students.

"The project will be totally open and transparent," Hobbs said.

There are no verified cases of humans getting the disease from deer. Nevertheless, the Colorado Division of Wildlife web site cautions hunters not to shoot sick deer, to have suspect animals tested before consuming, and to not eat soft organs or spinal parts. DOW also conducts an ongoing test that feeds infected deer brains to mountain lions. So far, there is no indication that the lions are susceptible to the disease.

Landowners wishing to participate in the study may contact Dr. N. Thompson Hobbs at the Warner College of Natural Resources via email at nthobbs@nrel.colostate.edu.