Stray elk renews concerns about deer farm security Minnesota
Local News
Stray elk renews concerns about farm security
Posted: Sep 28, 2012, 6:26 am By John Weiss The Post-Bulletin, Rochester
MN
The Department of Natural Resources is investigating how a mature bull elk
ended up on U.S. 52 near Zumbrota, where it was struck and killed by a truck on
Sept. 20.
DNR officials are also investigating whether a mature whitetail deer shot
by a bow hunter on Sunday near Marion, escaped from a game farm.
A truck driver hit the elk about 9 p.m., destroying the truck but not
injuring the driver, said Don Nelson, area DNR wildlife supervisor.
Where the elk came from is puzzling, Nelson said. It had a slit on its ear
that might have been from a game farm ear tag, but the slit had healed over, he
said. The Minnesota Board of Animal Health had no reports of bull elks missing
from game farms, he said.
To complicate the investigation, a bull elk was recorded on a trail camera
several days before in Waseca County about 45 miles away, and a Goodhue County
deputy saw a bull elk that morning near Wanamingo, a few miles from where it was
struck.
Those two clues hint that the elk was moving into the area from the west,
but that would be very unusual, Nelson said. Wild elk are found a few hundred
miles west of here, and there's a small herd in northwestern Minnesota, but
mature bulls rarely roam far from home, he said.
The antlers were damaged in the collision, so it's hard to compare them
with the photos from the trail camera, he said.
"I don't have a good sense of where this animal came from," he said.
The carcass was taken to be tested for chronic wasting disease and other
things that might help identify where it came from, he said.
The DNR has a better handle on where the whitetail doe originated. A blue
tag on the doe strongly indicates it came from a game farm, Nelson said.
The animal was shot outside the zone where all deer shot have to be tested
for CWD, which was found nearly two years ago in a deer shot near Pine Island.
The tagged doe is still being tested, he said.
Again, the DNR is working with the Board of Animal Health on that
case.
Seeing a mature elk in southeastern Minnesota is extremely rare, Nelson
said, but seeing a deer from a game farm "is more common than we would like to
see," he said.
Last year, only one deer was removed from the airport. It was unclear how
the deer got past the wildlife fence — there might have been a small opening in
the fence, or the deer might have simply jumped the 10 feet. Scherschligt said
wildlife studies indicate that deer can sometimes jump 12-foot-tall
obstructions, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture rates some whitetail deer
as capable of jumping 15 feet.
Jumping to a vertical height of at least eight feet, deer can scale over
barriers you may think are impossible. Watching a deer confronted with a
vertical, eight-foot tall, hight-tensile wire fence then
watching it leap over from a standing position makes a startling
impression. A frightened deer mhurdle a fence as high as 12 feet if given a
running start and enough adrenalin. Horizontally, a deer may leap 15 to 30 feet,
the longer distance only when frightened. In general, a deer may jump high or
long, but not both at the same time. Deer have also been known to crawl under
fences and through openings as small as 7.5 inches. The will of a deer to
penetrate a fence is dependent on the force of the motivation behind it.
Sauer (1984) reported white-tailed deer could jump a 2.1-m fence from a
standing start and could jump a 2.4-m fence from a running start. In
contradiction, Fitzwater (1972) indicates that a 2.4-m fence is sufficient to
prevent deer from jumping. Ludwig and Bremicker (1981) concluded that 2.4-m
fencing was effective at keeping deer out of roadways as long as the length of
the fence is extended well beyond the high-risk area for deer-vehicle
collisions.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Minnesota CWD DNR, Can chronic wasting disease jump from deer to humans?
yes, maybe some day YOUTUBE
Friday, January 21, 2011
MINNESOTA HIGHLY SUSPECT CWD POSITIVE WILD DEER FOUND NEAR PINE ISLAND
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Minnesota, National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, has
confirmed CWD case near Pine Island
MINNESOTA has had a problem with deer and elk escapees for some time, see ;
Deer, elk continue to escape from state farms
Article by: DOUG SMITH , Star Tribune Updated: March 14, 2011 - 12:08 PM
Curbing chronic wasting disease remains a concern; officials are increasing
enforcement.
Almost 500 captive deer and elk have escaped from Minnesota farms over the
past five years, and 134 were never recaptured or killed.
So far this year, 17 deer have escaped, and officials are still searching
for many of those.
The escapes fuel concern that a captive animal infected with a disease such
as chronic wasting disease (CWD) could spread it to the state's wild deer herd.
There are 583 deer and elk farms in Minnesota, holding about 15,000 animals.
Since 2002, CWD has been confirmed on four farms, and herds there were killed.
This year, the first confirmed case of the fatal brain disease in a Minnesota
wild deer was found near Pine Island – where a captive elk farm was found in
2009 to be infected with CWD.
State officials with the Board of Animal Health, which oversees the deer
and elk farms, and the Department of Natural Resources say there is no firm
evidence the elk herd, since destroyed, is responsible for infecting that
deer.
But given the proximity of the cases, suspicion remains high. And others
say the continued escape of captive animals is problematic.
"It's a loose cannon, and unfortunately it has the potential of threatening
our entire wild deer herd," said Mark Johnson, executive director of the
Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. He only recently learned that 109 deer and
elk escaped in 32 incidents in 2010, and 24 of those animals never were
recovered.
"The escapes themselves are startling and worrisome, but the two dozen not
accounted for are a real concern," he said.
Dr. Paul Anderson, an assistant director at the Board of Animal Health,
said the escapes are unacceptable.
"We've talked to the industry people and we all agree those numbers are too
high," Anderson said. "We and the producers need to do a better job. We're going
to increase our enforcement in 2011."
But he said the risk to the wild deer herd is minimal. Deer and elk
generally die within three years of exposure to CWD, and 551 of the 583
Minnesota farms have had CWD surveillance for three or more years.
"We're very confident those farms don't have CWD," he said. As for the
other 32 farms, "we don't think they have CWD either, but our confidence levels
are not as good. We're pushing them."
The law requires farmers to maintain 8-foot fences, but most of the escapes
are caused by human error, Anderson said. "They didn't close a gate or didn't
get it shut right," he said.
Captive deer and elk brought into the state must come from herds that have
been CWD-monitored for at least three years. Anderson said 184 animals were
shipped here in the past year, and farmers exported 1,200 outstate.
The DNR is hoping the lone wild deer that tested positive for CWD is an
aberration. Officials have long said CWD is potentially devastating to the
state's wild deer herd. The DNR is killing 900 deer near Pine Island to
determine if other deer might have the disease. So far, all have tested
negative. Since 2002, the agency has tested more than 32,000 hunter-harvested
deer, elk and moose.
While the Board of Animal Health licenses and oversees the deer and elk
farms, the DNR is responsible for animals that have escaped for more than 24
hours. Escaped deer and elk can keep both DNR conservation officers and wildlife
managers busy.
Tim Marion, an assistant area wildlife manager in Cambridge, has 38 deer
and elk farms in his four-county work area, which includes Isanti, Chisago,
Mille Lacs and Kanabec counties. Since last August, he's had 21 animals escape
from four farms. Dogs broke into two pens, a tree fell on a fence in a third and
another owner said someone opened a gate while he was away.
Four of those deer were shot and seven recaptured. Ten remain unaccounted
for. Finding them can be difficult. Of nine deer that escaped from a farm near
Mora, officials shot one two miles away, another four miles away and a third 8.5
miles from the farm. All were reported by people who spotted the animals at
recreational deer feeders because they had tags in one ear, as required by
law.
"There's no way we would have gotten any of these deer without the
landowners helping us," Marion said.
But he has another problem.
"Three of those deer out there have no tags in the ear," he said. Will he
find them?
"All I can say is we're trying," he said.
DNR conservation officer Jim Guida of Nisswa knows firsthand about escaped
deer. He was bow hunting last fall near home when he shot a 10-point buck.
Later, he was stunned to find a tag in its left ear.
"I thought it might be a [wild] research deer tagged at Camp Ripley," Guida
said.
Wrong. It had escaped from a farm a year earlier.
Friday, August 31, 2012
COMMITTEE ON CAPTIVE WILDLIFE AND ALTERNATIVE LIVESTOCK and CWD 2009-2012 a
review
Monday, June 11, 2012
OHIO Captive deer escapees and non-reporting
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Wisconsin 16 MONTH age limit on testing dead deer Game Farm CWD Testing
Protocol Needs To Be Revised
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Captive Deer Breeding Legislation Overwhelmingly Defeated During 2012
Legislative Session
Saturday, June 09, 2012
USDA Establishes a Herd Certification Program for Chronic Wasting Disease
in the United States
Friday, August 24, 2012
Diagnostic accuracy of rectal mucosa biopsy testing for chronic wasting
disease within white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) herds in North America
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Resistance of Soil-Bound Prions to Rumen Digestion
Monday, September 17, 2012
Rapid Transepithelial Transport of Prions Following Inhalation
TSS
posted by Terry S. Singeltary Sr. at
4:04 PM
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