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https://ndlegis.gov/assembly/68-202...y/bt1151.html?bill_year=2023&bill_number=1151
Wildlife Society and Wildlife Federation people are submitting the usual. Admonishing Legislators, why would you vote to take away authority of the game and fish? Who is going to be responsible if this disease kills all the deer? Much fearmongering.
Time line and truth:
Senators of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee,
● 1967 Everyone is aware Chronic Wasting Disease was first discovered in a deer pen. The Fort Collins Foothills Wildlife Research Facility was doing nutritional studies on mule deer. The deer began to waste away and die. They depopulated the survivors and limed the pens. Lime doesn't kill a prion. They re-stocked the pens with more mule deer and they began to waste away. So they took some to a zoo in Denver and released the rest into the wild.
● 1975 A wasting syndrome was observed at a Toronto Canada Zoo in mule deer they had received from the Denver Zoo.
● 1979 Recognized in mule deer at Wyoming Sybille Wildlife Research Facility. Of the 66 mule deer, 57 contracted the disease and died. No data on the remaining 9.
● 1981 Detected in wild elk in Colorado. ● 1985 Detected in mule deer and elk Wyoming and Colorado.
● 1996 Detected in farmed elk in Saskatchewan.
● 1997 Detected in farmed elk in South Dakota.
● 1998 Detected in farmed elk in Montana. Sourced from the farm in South Dakota. They were depopulated using incinerators to burn them at $8000 a piece.
● 2002 Detected in Wind Cave National Park South Dakota. Even with CWD present, the elk population continues to grow above carrying capacity every year so the Park Service opens the gates and they haze them out with helicopters. From an endemic area!!
● 2002 Detected in Wisconsin.
● 2003 In the State of the Union Address, George W. Bush pledged $50 million to fight CWD.
● 2004 Wisconsin embarked on a plan to eradicate all deer off the landscape in a 287 square mile zone using hunters and sharpshooters.
● 2012 Eight years later, 172,000 deer had been removed from the Wisconsin eradication zone at a cost of $32 million dollars. Governor Scott Walker empaneled a committee to evaluate the control and prevention strategies including population reduction, feeding bans of wildlife, baiting of deer, importation of carcasses, bans on importation of trophies, restrictions on taxidermists and bans on urine based scents. The committee concluded, "none of this had been effective." The eradication zone created a vacuum and deer from surrounding areas simply moved in.
● 2012 George W. Bush's $50 million dollar appropriation was gone. The surveillance and monitoring program failed.
● 2017 Researchers in Colorado and Wyoming are now comparing genomes from cervids living in heavily infected areas to those cervids living in no CWD found areas. Cervids living in heavily infected areas are moving away from CWD susceptible genetic genome markers. After 50 years of CWD pressure, Wyoming, Colorado deer and elk are exhibiting some resistance and living to old age. It remains unknown if this will allow elk and deer to mitigate population impacts of CWD or achieve herd immunity.
● 2022 The CWD Research and Management Act. $70 million.
Thirty-five million to research per year multiplied by six years.
Research can accelerate the process of genetic genome selection.
As the years of “data” on the “devastation” of CWD and the monies that have been allocated are highlighted, there is a pattern developing. Crises crises crisis, more and more federal money is needed to restrict and eradicate. Now we have THE PEOPLE catching on and standing up because it is THEIR money that is feeding this bureaucracy. Let's revisit Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. It was known to have CWD back in 2002. It has a seven foot high woven wire fence around it. The herd grows every year. This disease does not preclude reproduction. Every year Custer State Park next door does a Bison roundup and then sell the excess. Wind Cave does not sell excess elk, they open the gates and chase them out with helicopters, "every year." Biologists, ecologists and wildlife managers know that.
> Please support HB 1151
> Dwight Grosz
Hazen North Dakota