September 21, 2018 at 4:44 p.m.
Final guidance available for review on CWD surveillance permits and sick deer reporting
Documents available until Oct. 1
Final guidance available for review on CWD surveillance permits and sick deer reporting
CWD Surveillance Permits
Surveillance permits will be available for use in any areas where surveillance and management goals warrant additional samples, according to the CWD surveillance permit document. Also, it states landowners and agents are limited to the weapon listed on the license and must abide by season dates for that weapon type. Only the landowner and agents listed on the permit may harvest deer under the permit. Landowners may not charge a fee to agents hunting on surveillance permits.
Other management actions, such as additional days of hunting or additional tags, may be considered in some surveillance areas. The document also states surveillance permits will be limited to adult deer only. The DNR also made it clear they need only the lymph nodes of the deer and antlers or European mounts will remain the property of the hunter and will be given back or retained by the hunter.
As with any hunting situation, those born after Jan. 1, 1973 must still provide proof of successful completion of a hunter safety course or completion of basic training in the U.S. Armed Forces, Reserves, or National Guard.
Landowners owning at least five contiguous acres of land, all or partially in a surveillance area, may be issued surveillance permits. Those with fewer acres may be issued permits at the discretion of the staff. Issuing decisions are made on the basis of type of habitat, deer density per parcel, and proximity to the positive CWD test, among other things. Permits will be issued for 1-5 deer harvests, based on acreage of the land where the deer will be harvested. More surveillance permits may be issued in some cases once the initial authorizations are filled.
All deer harvested under surveillance permits must be submitted for testing, and carcasses must be disposed of as directed by the DNR. Harvest authorizations are not to be used for albino or white deer.
Sick Deer Response Plan
The Sick Deer Response document will serve to provide guidance to field staff when responding to citizens' report of sick deer. The document states fawns prior to the start of bow season will not be tested, nor will deer without clinical signs of CWD. Those will consist of deer found dead, "mortality due to trauma and land owner requests for deer found dead or seen alive but without clinical signs of CWD," according to the document. However, all contact to DNR staff regarding sick deer, whether those animals are dead or alive, will need to be recorded in the Necropsy Submission Database by the field person contacted by a member of the public.
The document also outlines when Wildlife Health should be contacted regarding need for testing for other diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, hemorrhagic disease and others. It also delineates priorities for different situations.
For example, a deer reported to be sick (exhibiting classic signs of CWD), a high priority would be a report in a county where CWD has not previously been detected in the wild herd or in a county with a low or new detection.
An example of a medium priority report would be one that is not high priority for disease purposes, but that may be a highly used public location and therefore generate widespread negative attention.
In this case, if possible, the land owner would be asked to dispatch the deer. If not possible, DNR staff would respond when informed by the landowner the deer was present, dispatch the deer, send the lymph nodes in for testing and dispose of the carcass.
Low priority reports would include sick deer reports in counties "where the combined age/sex CWD prevalence is greater than five percent or a report of a dead deer in an area not defined as high priority," by the document, as two examples. In these cases, the landowner may be authorized to dispatch the deer and instructed on proper disposal of the carcass. Information on carcass disposal can also be found in the document. Landfills qualified to accept carcasses are the preferred method of disposal. This, the document said, should "reduce or eliminate the need for site remediation." In the rare case where environmental contamination is a concern, however, the document provides guidance on that as well.
Those interested in reading the complete final guidance on these or other guidance documents, or following a guidance document through the process from inception to final form can do so by searching "program guidance" on the DNR website dnr.wi.gov.
Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].
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