DENVER, Colorado – Five years into a 15-year study, research has shown
cattle do not naturally catch chronic wasting disease, a brain-wasting
disease akin to mad cow disease that infects deer and elk, a leading
scientist said Aug. 7.
“We’re quite pleased,” said Elizabeth Williams of the University of
Wyoming, the head scientist of the study.
Once an obscure disease, chronic wasting disease is a brain ailment
that affects deer or elk. It has been diagnosed in farmed elk in
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Saskatchewan, Alberta and several U.S. states.
Concern in the U.S. escalated in February when the disease was
discovered in Wisconsin. That discovery renewed questions of whether it
is safe to eat venison or elk meat from the wild or from game farms and
whether the disease could be passed on to livestock.
Concerns about the spread of the disease and its impact on hunting and
game farming operations were the focus of discussions involving 450
scientists, government officials and hunting interests from around the
United States and Canada who met in Denver last week.
The possible impact on the multi-billion dollar hunting industry has
sent shivers through state wildlife agencies.
Jack Ward Thomas, a wildlife conservation professor at the University
of Montana and former U.S. forest service chief, said science does not
indicate chronic wasting will spread to humans. But officials must
produce correct information to avoid misunderstanding and panic, he
said.
The spectre of chronic wasting disease affecting the human brain is too
important to ignore, Thomas told the conference.
In a recent study conducted by the University of Wyoming, Colorado
Division of Wildlife, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the
Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
cattle were inoculated in the mouth or placed near infected animals, a
scenario that would replicate nature, Williams said.
So far, the animals from the two groups have not shown any indications
of contracting the disease, although three of 13 cattle inoculated
directly in the brain did develop evidence of chronic wasting disease.
“Cattle exposed via more natural routes of exposure have shown no
evidence of CWD,” Williams said.
The study has 10 more years to go, but the five-year period is
important because that is when the disease would start to show up,
Williams said.
An area in northeast Colorado and neighboring southeastern Wyoming has
been a known endemic area for several decades, but wildlife managers
were surprised in April when the disease was diagnosed on the west side
of the Continental Divide.
