Early hunt planned to slow spread of disease
Deer archery season comes sooner rather than later to three Ohio counties comprising the Deer Surveillance Area, aka DSA.
The reason for the early start in Wyandot, Marion and Hardin counties is CWD, chronic wasting disease. The disease kills, as far as is known, all the deer it infects by attacking the brain and nervous system. The prions, or misfolded proteins, that cause death are especially problematic because they are shed by infected deer, persist for years in the soil and can be taken up by plants on which whitetails feed.
Legal hunting arrives 30 minutes before sunrise Saturday, three weeks before deer season commences in other counties.
The early start and the additional DSA gun hunt Oct. 7-9 are part of the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s effort to contain or at least slow the spread of CWD by knocking down deer numbers in the known area of infection.
Discovered in Ohio’s wild deer population toward the end of the 2020-21 deer season when two whitetails taken near Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County tested positive, the number of confirmed cases has grown to 22.
Among the 50 deer killed during culling operations since last hunting season, one tested positive for CWD, said Mike Tonkovich, deer specialist with the wildlife division.
“It was taken in Wyandot County, east of Rt. 23,” he said.
No infected deer previously had been found in that
part of the county, Tonkovich said, indicating that the disease has spread. No infected deer have yet showed up in Hardin County, though because of deer travel corridors along streams the eventual appearance of CWD there seems likely.
Actually, the likelihood the disease can be contained to three counties isn’t great.
“We’re doing a lot of good things,” Tonkovich said before adding that too many factors work against containment.
One significant hindrance is that infective prions can remain viable for years in the soil. Even if all deer were removed from an infected area, he said, roaming whitetails would have to be kept away for an indeterminate time.
Meanwhile, both hunters and deer have a hand in spreading the disease.
Bucks in particular can range distances of 30 miles and more when driven by territorial quests and conquests. Hunters who fail to take precautions when butchering or moving deer carcasses can introduce CWD to non-infected areas.
“You can’t totally stop people from spreading deer. We can ask them,” Tonkovich said.
Ask, the division does. The booklet, Ohio Hunting and Trapping Regulations 2023-24, details on page 15 the deer carcass regulations for cervids (elk, moose, caribou and deer) taken outside the state and transported into Ohio. Also detailed is the transport path to follow for deer taken inside the DSA.
Also applicable to deer taken inside the DSA are mandatory sampling dates and the locations where the carcasses must be taken for testing. The dates occur Oct. 7-9, Nov. 4-5 and 11-12, and gun week, Nov. 27Dec. 3. Details can be found on page 14 of the hunting regulations booklet.
While the booklet states “there is no strong evidence that CWD is transmissible to humans,” the division urges caution in handling any deer and advises against eating meat from any deer that tests positive.
Hunters are alerted to wear rubber gloves while field dressing and to wash hands thoroughly afterward. Neither handling nor eating brain, spinal tissue, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes is recommended.
So be careful about what goes into the sausage. Newly infected deer can appear normal, but symptoms progress to staggering, drooling, lowered head and uncharacteristic fearlessness.
outdoors@dispatch.com