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O.F.A.H. AGM & Conference, A Conversation on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)By Alan Fennell Notes and His CommentsMarch 14 to 16, 2019ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGThursday March 14, 2019 - 6:00 PM-call to order, conservation pledge, all of the O.F.A.H. Board of Directors (BOD) introduced, and a minute of silence for anyone no longer with us;-copies of the 2018 Annual Report and financials distributed-President’s Report – Kerry Coleman-Executive Director’s Report – Angelo Lombardo-Treasurer’s Report – Bill Blackwell-a number of handouts; with explanations and details he discussed the 2018 actual budgetincome and expenditures;-the 2019 budget was gone over;-motion to accept 2018 actual and 2019 budget;Seconded;Vote;Carried-Resolutions Report – None-Advisory Committee Reports;-Jack O’Dette Award- - Wendell Crosbie-adjourned at 7:50 PMCONFERENCE- Conversation on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)Friday March 15, 20198:45 AM-Welcome and Conference Overview ,Kerry Coleman, O.F.A.H. President8:50 AM-Opening Remarks,John Yakabuski, MPP, Ontario Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF)-he lives in Barry’s Bay; understands that hunting ($430 million) and fishing ($2.2 billion) puts money into the economy; promote sustainable and safe use; new license service in Fall of 2018 made less distinct documents of licenses and changed the access methods; now all armed services and veterans do not have to purchase/pay for fishing licenses; adding Mother’s day and Father’s day as license free fishing dates to current ones; comprehensive review of moose; started an advisory committee that will work over the next 2 years (Big Game Managers Advisory Committee – BGMAC); there will be experienced and knowledgeable hunters used; since 2002 over 12,000 cervids have been tested; in 2018 did WMU65 and Southwestern Ontario with the results of no CWD found; MNRF will sample all year round any cervids that act abnormal and/or show symptoms associated with CWD;Page 29:15 AM-CWD Basics,Dr. Evelyn Merrill, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta-has for 40 years studied cervids; she calls herself a “field biologist”; acknowledged that Michael Samuel of University of Wisconsin supplied his data; Prions are proteinaceous infectious particles – cellular protein; they are normal but diseases are the conversion of these normal to abnormal proteins; started in sheep and goats in the 1730’s, then bovine, then CWD, then human prion diseases; symptoms are lost weight, stumbling (lack of balance), drooping ears; it is highly contagious and 100% fatal; observed to be 1.5 to 2.5 years for Deer to die and up to 4 years for Elk;-up to 2000 it was considered a “Western” disease (first found in Colorado in 1967); not found in wild cervids till 1990’s; it was found in a deer in the Toronto Zoo in 1974; first found in Saskatchewan in 1996, Alberta in 2002, Quebec in 2018; it was found in Korea in 2000; Norway in March 2016 in a Reindeer and June 2016 in a Moose; Finland in 2018 near the Russian border; testing is mostly done after expiration; there are tests rectally and throat that are used on live;Routes of Transmission:-direct from body fluids to another; indirect from soils, water, vegetation surfaces; high animal concentrations does make transmission more likely; vertical from adult to offspring appears to be minor route of transmission and when detected may have been by the body fluid normal birth interaction; there is environmental evidence that it can be transmitted from the bedding of infected to non; binding to soil is <2% and mostly clay soils; plants are potential reservoirs; due to this Norway limited import of hay and straw in 2018; there is animal vectors from coyotes and birds from infected carcasses;-in Alberta 86% of CWD positive cases since 2005 are Mule Deer; all genotypes are at risk though at different levels of susceptibility; males have a 3 to 4 times more prevalence than female to been infected; fining that CWD mortality is becoming faster so fewer and younger bucks plus decreasing deer populations; now have scientific study evidence that we do have dropping populations of Mule Deer, Whitetail Deer, and Elk in a number of jurisdictions;-due to that there are many long-term characteristics to CWD, its transmission, its containment we require long-term political and financial commitments to the CWD issue;Questions & Answers-fetus infection; farmed deer; issue of no government appetite to limit transportation vector (moving live or dead animals or crops like hay);Page 310:15 AM-Prions, CWD and Human Health: Cause for Concern?Dr. Michael Coulthart, Head, Prion Diseases Unit and Canadian Creutzfeldt-Jakob(CJD) Surveillance System, Infectious Disease Prevention & Control Branch,Public Health Agency of Canada-there are known human health risks from CJD, Scrapie and BSE; currently unknown human health risk from CWD; comes from a normal prion protein we all produce naturally so CWD is impossible to eradicate; the characteristics of the abnormal prions (CWD prions) are terrible (resistance, no safe exposure, distinct strains within a species, can overcome host resistance, high fatality rate to host, no vaccine);-classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) kills about one (01) Canadian per week (1 to 2 million per year world-wide); this CJD started as no human risk and we also have a variant vCJD; how do we address the danger to human risk; CWD continues to expand; from January 01, 1998 to February 28, 2019 have found CJD & vCJD no direct evidence to CWD to date;-studies of spread/transmission in monkeys show highly susceptibility by oral or intercranalelly; this study used muscle or brain matter; he feels CWD muscle may not be “safe” to humans unlike BSE which was; a risk to human CWD infection cannot be dismissed; precautions he suggests are test what you eat, do not eat CWD infected meat, do not eat any cervids brain matter;Questions & Answers-because of BSE any UK people from 1980 to 1996 were excluded from giving blood; under ethical rights how do you ask questions to “filter” blood donors; can hide/bone mount cervids by taxidermy; do not prepare hide with brain matter; brain contact maybe transmission vector; CWD free area different rules from CWD infected areas;11:00 AM-How Policy has Shaped CWD Today,Darrel Rowledge, Director, Alliance Agency of Canada-he has been tracking for a long time; how did we get here; the science of governance is how to make intelligent decisions to get what we want and avoid what we do not want; with the UK BSE “Mad Cow Disease” epidemic it was only stopped when there was a change in government policy (in 2003 one cow in Canada; some time ago CWD started to be found in 1996 (one animal in Alberta); from a number of credible sources alarms sounded; and ignored; governments waited till 2000’s before even started tracing of where coming from; studies (science) to prove transmission causes (see speaker); “Tragedy of the Commons”? micro market myopia?; must do broad business and biology and for the long-term;-the North American model of Wildlife Conservation was formed as the study done showed that the wildlife when Jefferson was President were gone when Ted Roosevelt was President; governments who needed to protect the wildlife did not; so this is why Ted Roosevelt put in place laws to change how we use wildlife to a “sustainability” framework; must protect habitat andPage 4Darrel Rowledge, Director, Alliance Agency of Canada - - continuedbiodiversity; most diseases came from animals (after human intervention by domestication); it has been shown that being captured causes stress, density too high, exposure, live in bad environment with increased rodents etc.; when you move animals you move anything in it or on it;-when Alberta was looking at adding “Game Farming” to the provincial agriculture landscape, Alberta had no information to base their decision; Wyoming’s large studies supplied information which was not favourable and the aboriginal people was opposed; the government still rammed it through and within four years we had our first epidemic; his book “No Accident” explained the problem and there was no government action; if anything the opposite for one thing they did was give large amounts of taxpayers money to the game farm industry;-there is a need for vital actions; the options are:01]-contain the spread now -or-02]-launch more studies-the governments official policies have picked option 02 and the spread of CWD continues; their defense is “there is not yet a human case”; precautionary principle has always been defined as one must protect if a “chance” of severe harm; when mapping our future will we have a tragedy or a triumph?;Questions & Answers-did the book “No Accident” and now has a film (see “);11:45 AM-The Blackfoot people and Survival of Chronic Wasting,Brian Jackson, Band Councillor, Piikani Nation-First Nations point of view; he had only seen and started work on the CWD file four years ago; was in the dark before; when started to get the information from Darrel Rowledge it scared me silly; there was an alarm in my mind; wildlife is for sustenance, customs, traditions, religion; we share with rations to our poorer people; there are treaties on most First Nations;-most Chiefs and Vice-Chiefs totally unaware of the CWD problem when he talked at the last Alliance Meeting/Conference the Assembly of Chiefs; he has made presentations to Assembly of Chiefs members and governments; tried to get awareness to the First Nations; government has fiduciary responsibility to deal with issues affecting First Nations; he has been asking the government that they prove by science there is no harm;-we have a history of threats from government decisions like residential schools, broken treaties, lost land, laws, etc.; we have tried to move on and deal with these problems and their consequences; this CWD threat is a threat to our religion, customs, life style;12:30 PMLUNCH BREAKPage 51:15 PMOntario CWD Surveillance and Response Plan,Chris Heydon, Senior Wildlife Policy Advisor, Wildlife Section, Ministry ofNatural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) (and an assistant)-why do we care about CWD?; effects to the landscape, culture and economy are severe; so far our water barriers have helped keep CWD out (fast rivers like the Detroit and St. Lawrence and the Great lakes); the problem is that as of September 2018 Ontario is surrounded; the Quebec case of September 2018 was on a large farm of 3,000 animals; when CWD was found the government culled all the animals; when they tested them they found not the one case, they found eleven infected animals; the government then culled around the farm site, banned vehicles and hunting in the area, and banned hunting within a 45 Kilometer radius;-MNRF looks at the CWD risk model factors to make their % risk assessment maps; plan their fall studies in April of that year (year over year); in 2018 they planned Southwestern Ontario; when the CWD in Quebec happened in September 2018 WMU65 was immediately added;-the CWD risk model factors are:01]the location of game farms, zoos, taxidermists, neighbour cases/outlook02]the deer and elk density per Kilometer on WMU level03]the prior sampling effort done in that area04]the unstudied cervids population (caribou, red deer, etc.)05]the deer aggregation areas (rutting actions)06]the deer wintering grounds-in 2018 sampled 308 in WMU65 and 457 in Southwestern Ontario; no CWD found; all areas of the province have been done three times since 2002; in excess of 12,400 deer sampled; have done targeted opportunist samplings since 2009 (an animal since/reported with evidence of CWD symptoms);-EHD is different from CWD; EHD the neck & head swells and they die between 8 and 36 hours with the rest of the body looking healthy; CWD no neck or head swelling, they become emaciated and take a long time to die;-there is no treatment nor vaccine; in the future CWD presence on the landscape may cause a need to effect deer management; the Ontario CWD Surveillance & Response Plan was approved in 2005; it is currently being reviewed with a look at new vectors; want to have a coordinated approach;-MNRF actions to protect province were: in 2005 prohibited entry of high risk parts; in 2010 banned urine lures/scents from cervids for hunting; in 2010 need for a required permit for import of live native cervids; fines for cervids farm escapes;-MNRF looking at now adding broader prohibitions which could be ban all live and hunter killed cervids from CWD positive jurisdictions, or prohibit all, prohibit feeding and/or baiting, or increase fines for cervids farm escapees;Page 6Chris Heydon, Senior Wildlife Policy Advisor, Wildlife Section, Ministry ofNatural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) (and an assistant)- - continued-other possible MNRF adds could be control zones for surveillance, suspend hunting season in control zones, depopulate within control zone, mandate head submission for CWD testing, prohibit carcass movement, restrict deer rehabilitation, or harvest management to encourage hunting in CWD positive areas; in the coming weeks there will be an EBR for public input on this; then a 45 day comment time limit; MNRF hope for fall 2019 implementation;Questions & Answers2:00 PMChronic Wasting Disease Prevention in Manitoba – A Success Story,Richard Davies, Big Game health Program Manager, ManitobaSustainable Development-at present Manitoba has prevented it from coming in; he changed his title to “Prevention in Manitoba” as felt “a success story” was too optimistic; Manitoba asked questions so they knew methods to prevent; major concern is CWD prion infection outside the cervids (on soil, hay, etc.); transmission direct by nose to nose, indirect by fluids left on landscape then passed on / especially at unnatural feed sites and trucks;-he admitted Manitoba has weak legislation to keep out possibility infected cervids (in whole in in parts); they have banned import of live animals; they have banned the import of unprocessed cervids carcasses; not adequate communication across borders re rules; they have now banned any substance containing cervids bodily fluids; they call WMUs Game Hunting Areas (GHAs) in Manitoba; in 1997 designated CWD surveillance zone in the GHAs on the Saskatchewan border and added GHAs on the border with United States of America in 2018;-it is now illegal for hunters to bait; the consultations with First Nations and Metis caused Manitoba to ban in CHAs in the surveillance zones; evidence show that farm stored hay bales cause unnatural cervids density; to help farmers Manitoba supply hay storage enclosure fencing (8 foot fencing); CWD action plan is if CWD found there will be a scorched earth (cull all) within 20 KMs before the first calving around any CWD positive site;Questions & Answers2:45 PMCOFFEE BREAKPage 73:00 PM-Interagency Cooperation and Rapid Response: The New York Model,Jim Farquhar, Chief, Bureau of Wildlife, New York State Department ofEnvironmental Conservation-they had interagency cooperation and response; between April 2002 to April 2005 New York State added protections - - banned importation of live deer and elk, feeding ban, parts & carcass restrictions, cooperation with herd certification with The Department of Agriculture & Marketing; they did this to try and prevent CWD crossing their borders; they started sampling in 2002;-in beginning of March 2005 New York State found a CWD positive animal on a game farm; in mid-March 2005 New York State found a second CWD positive animal on a different game farm; both were small herd farms and were culled; in late March 2005 they found 3 of the 20 were CWD positive;-New York State saw this as a crisis; initiated command structure with a 10 miles (about 16.1 KMs) with sampling but did not de-populate at this point; also collected road kills and sampled them; they had a lot of public meetings to educate the public on CWD, its hazards, and what New York State was doing about it; they found 2 CWD positive animals from this harvest;-then New York State added new CWD regulations and special locations for sampling; set containment area boundaries and they processed and tested 1,610 deer in 2005 in these areas; they tested 8,200 deer statewide; they have tested 52,000 deer from 2002 to 2018;-New York State have a plan (high level, broad); they have a current list of all meat cutters and taxidermists; established faster interagency cooperation; New York State experience makes them tell us have a plan, use it, update plan as new information is available, communicate about CWD; he also suggests Ontario does a “table-top” exercise be done to test the Ontario plan;Justin Gansowski, District Supervisor, United States Department of Agriculture,APHIS, Wildlife Services-in 2005 they did rapid response twice to a CWD positive site; these were the sites Jim Farquhar talked about; they depopulated; the game farms had 20 deer; each time it took 3 days to prepare and mobilize (April 11-22, then April 25-29); they used specially trained and equipped people; new expensive technology; they had access permission crews (for any private land), shooter crews and then carcass pick-up crews;Questions & Answers3:45 PMNew Approaches to CWD Prevention,Dr. David Westaway, Director, Centre for Prions & Protein Folding Diseases,University of Alberta-new approaches to CWD prevention; the major characteristic of a prion that is critical to being “abnormal” is the shape; prions are not bacteria and are not viruses; through molecular biology we hope to make tackling strategies;Questions & AnswersPage 84:30 PMAdjournedConference- -continuedSaturday March 16, 2018 - 7:00 AM-the O.F.A.H. Board of Directors (BOD) met for a working breakfast;8:15 AM-Opening Remarks,-due to the airplane crash, and subsequent March 13, 2019 grounding of all Boeing 737 Max airplanes, some speakers were unable to arrive for the conference;8:45 AM-Wildlife Management in CWD Endemic Areas,Dr. Margo Pybus, Wildlife Disease Specialist, Fish & Wildlife Division, AlbertaEnvironment and Parks-one of the speakers not able to be hereDr. Evelyn Merrill, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Albertastepped in and gave a credible version of Dr. M Pybus’s presentation-discussed the CWD history; in 1996 no cervid imports, feeding was already banned, and changed from passive surveillance to active; up to April 2002 no CWD found in tested deer which included 241 wild deer; in November 2002 found CWD in farmed deer; the experts said need for aggressive eradication; by 2005 there was mandatory head submission and testing;-went into strong public meetings in effected areas; their program had internal reviews in 2008, 2012 and 2019 with an external review in 2008; did herd reductions from 2006 to 2008 using sharpshooters and helicopters; negative public pressure stopped program; after the 2 years we learned that deer will move into reduced herd areas thus controls were applied for too short a time to have any effect;-we wondered why we were finding 86% of the CWD in mule deer, only 14% in white-tailed deer; the research said this not caused by density differences, not movement differences, not migration differences, not home range; mule deer are in a more rugged terrain areas as a percentage; mule deer have more winter herd-ups / deer yards; -found if parents had CWD then higher susceptibility to infection; by modeling males are more susceptible as are in bachelor groups and eat more food; feel optimal harvest is some removal of females, remove males with susceptibility, and all CWD infected animals;-Alberta are doing about 5,000 samples per year in the infected areas (cost in Alberta of $72 per sample); wanted to do management experiments in 4 townships on males and social groups; this did not happen even though there was some support as no funding and then a change of government; Alberta, Saskatchewan, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming had joint meeting to make plans;Questions & AnswersPage 9Perception and Public Engagement on CWD,Dr. Vic Adamowicz, Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University ofAlberta was-one of the speakers not able to be here-an announcement was made that his presentation will be produced with a Dr. Vic Adamowicz voiceover and available later; also he is working on a film;9:45 AMCOFFEE BREAK10:00 AM-The Hunter’s View of CWD,Nick Pinizzotto, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Deer Alliance-he is only 5 hours away in Pennsylvania so he drove because of the airplane issue; he calls CWD a monster with many heads; explained that “National Deer Alliance” mandate is to serve as guardians of wild deer; work on pushing politically proper science based conservation; they have brought all interested groups who are working on CWD together to share the job, information, and keep the message consistent; offered to have O.F.A.H. join; there is a problem in the public as they have a bias of “do not want to hear or believe bad news”;Questions & Answers10:45 AMCWD: A Saskatchewan Perspective,Dr. Iga Stasiak, Provincial Wildlife Health Specialist, Saskatchewan Ministry ofthe Environment-game farming established in 1987 to diversify agriculture; lack of stakeholder buy in on fighting CWD was huge; poor communication by government to hunting and the public; by 2018 almost every hunting zone has had positive CWD animals; studies showed spilled/baited grain was the highest cause of CWD spread; from here shift to management by minimizing spread;Questions & Answers-loss of deer population is real; negative effects to First Nations; to dispose of CWD positive carcass she recommends double bag it and leave at an authorized landfill;11:30 AMLUNCH BREAKPage 101:00 PMPanel Discussion,Darrel Rowledge, Brian Jackson, Jim Farquhar, Harvey Petracek-Harvey Petracek is an elk and bison farmer near Atwater, Saskatchewan; he has a B.Sc. in Agriculture specializing in soil science;-learning from experience; we can’t change the past; what from here?; if we look for CWD we will find it; we here are all victims of bad government policy decisions; game farm operators we test so the less said the better (do not scare the customer); First Nations feel alarmed by game farms as they are not natural, not part of “the very old ways”; CWD alarms First Nations even more;-each of the panel speakers were asked “if you had the power what proactive measure would you implement?”-Darrel Rowledge: bring all resources of science and stakeholders together to stop this epidemic; strategic management of the landscape;-Brian Jackson: reach out to the First Nations people and get them educated; get them attending stuff like this conference; delivery of the message is critical; make them aware;-Jim Farquhar: eliminate the movement of live animals or high risk parts (like urine, scent, etc.); this to manage/control spread of CWD;-Harvey Petracek: find a scientific live test for CWD; get everyone on the same page; make everyone know the risk of not possibly preventing the spread;-the problem is not knowledge it is the lack of communication; science needs to advocate to governments for First Nations to survive; take message back to your personal social network to get the knowledge out to broader circles; get the message to the man on the street to correct behaviour/stop certain behaviour that causes this transport/spread of CWD;Questions & Answers3:00 PMCoffee Break3:15 PMKeynote Speaker,Bryan Richards, Emerging Disease Coordinator, National Wildlife Health Center,United States Geological Survey-he displayed a picture he had taken of some deer in a Southwestern Wisconsin field; in any picture of 30 deer in Southwestern Wisconsin, in an infected area with only 3% infected animals, at least a couple of those pictured deer are CWD positive; currently there are “alarmist” messages on the mainstream media and social networks; there is much proof in science that Prions cause CWD and much science showing that other sources are not the cause;Page 11Bryan Richards, United States Geological Survey- - continued-from 2002 to 2018 sampled 200 to 1050 animals per year in Wisconsin by voluntary submission; only 20% of the hunters voluntarily submitted so then 4 out of 5 harvested deer not sampled; he said stop moving the disease around by stopping human assisted transport; deal with CWD where it is now; your goal is to keep Ontario CWD free and then keep it that way; recommendations are surveillance, block routes (human transport), communicate, support science and finally hunt;Questions & Answers4:30 PMFinal Thoughts,Matt DeMille, Manager, Fish and Wildlife Services, Ontario Federation ofAnglers and Hunters (O.F.A.H.)-we need to coordinate all parties here, including the ones who were in the audience and did not have a formal presentation; O.F.A.H. has been working on this file for 3 decades; so what are we going to do now?5:00PMAdjourned ................
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