The Williams Lake Sportsmens Association invites hunters to come out to their clubhouse this evening to learn more about Chronic Wasting Disease.
Kirsten Falck, Chronic Wasting Disease Coordinator for the Thompson-Okanagan Regions who will be speaking at this information session, said its a neurological disease that is specific to deer, elk, moose and caribou.
“Natural proteins in the animal’s body are changed to prions which then accumulate in the nervous tissue and that causes the brain cells to die. That’s why they start exhibiting neurological symptoms. They stop eating, they start losing a lot of weight, they stop having a natural fear response and walking around in circles.”
Falck noted that the disease is shed from the animal through fluids.
“Urine, feces, saliva, blood. More recently we’ve started conducting research and finding that the prions can actually go into the soil, into the environment, and remain active, and that can also be a method of transmission.”
Falck said up to 33 percent of new positive cases in farms in Canada were actually from infected hay being transported.
“Deer will go out into the fields, they’ll shed the prions into the soil and onto the hay and that is a suspected method of transmission. It’s super important that hunters submit their animal’s heads for testing for the disease so that way they know if their animal has the disease or not. There’s no way for us to manage the disease or know about the disease, whether it’s there or not, without hunters submitting their heads for testing.”
When asked if there have been any reports of Chronic Wasting Disease in the Cariboo Falck said not at this point, the only two positive cases that were found in BC were located in the Kootenay Region South of Cranbrook.
“At the moment we haven’t gotten a lot of samples from the Cariboo Region so we don’t really know what is going on in that area. We do believe it to be low risk.”
To learn more and ask questions the Chronic Wasting Disease Information session will held this evening (Thursday) at 7 at the Williams Lake Sportsmen Club house on Bond Lake Road.
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