Saskatchewan rural municipal leaders are concerned about chronic wasting disease, but not enough to prevent the elk and deer industry from growing.
They voted down a resolution at their convention last week that would have called on the province to prevent the establishment of more elk and deer ranches.
During debate, Connie Argue, a district veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told delegates there have been 174 positive tests out of 7,409 cervids destroyed so far in an attempt to control CWD.
“Most of these animals were in very early stages, where shedding of the infectious agent is thought to be absent or minimal,” she said.
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Thirty-nine ranches have had positive tests. There are more than 500 licensed game farms in the province.
Since last January, the province has had a voluntary health surveillance program in place, and more than 90 percent of the elk and deer farms are participating, she said.
Lorrie Zinn, of the RM of Dufferin, moved the resolution to stop more game farms. She said there are too many unknowns for people to be complacent.
She said 259 beef cows and 108 bison have been destroyed because they were pastured on a site where CWD had been found. Until scientists can prove without doubt that humans can’t contract CWD, governments should err on the side of caution, she said.
Argue said the risk of CWD being transmitted to humans is extremely low.
“CWD has not been diagnosed in an experimental group of 20 cattle living amongst CWD-infected cervids for the last four years,” she said. “Ten cattle experimentally exposed to CWD prions by the oral route at a level that would easily infect deer are still healthy after four years.”
And of 13 calves inoculated in their brain tissue, only three died with prions found in their brains, Argue said.
Another delegate urged caution, pointing out that CWD is in the same family of diseases as bovine spongiform encephalopathy and scrapie.
“Twenty years ago they didn’t think mad cow disease could be spread to humans,” he said. “They were wrong.”
But Dave Ollen, from the RM of Britannia, said game farmers in his area sent him to the convention with a message.
“They have all indicated ‘do not let the delegates to SARM harm our industry after what we have gone through’.”
And a delegate from Snipe Lake asked how a few new ranches could create a greater health risk if responsible animal husbandry is practised.
