LARAMIE, Wyoming – Decades after its mysterious genesis, chronic wasting disease continues to haunt the native deer
and elk populations in this region, contagiously spreading between animals and silently hollowing out their nervous systems.
Researchers have been observing CWD since the 1960s, but they still don’t understand some of its key elements.
And now that the disease has appeared in American and Canadian game farms, veterinarians and wildlife biologists are scrambling to contain it.
CWD could have devastating con-sequences for North American game farms.
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It’s possible that the North American public will equate CWD to mad cow disease and react strongly, destroying the entire game farm industry in the process.
A less destructive possibility is that CWD will turn out to be as harmless as scrapie, a disease that has existed in European sheep herds for centuries but has never been linked to human health problems.
Either way, scientists need to discover if CWD can be controlled and eradicated. They must determine if it is a risk to humans who eat elk and deer products. And they must conclude if there is a risk to cattle that share range and pasture with infected wildlife.
Scientists need to discover the truth.
But no one knows if they have the knowledge, the time or the ability to
do it.
