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QDMA Endorses Michigan’s CWD Response Plan and Urges More Research, Monitoring and Education
Bogart, Ga. – While endorsing the Michigan Department of Natural Resource’s (DNR) chronic wasting disease (CWD) surveillance and response plan, the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) urged the Natural Resources Commission to take additional steps to strengthen the agency’s response.
The QDMA’s response follows the recent discovery of CWD in a captive white-tailed deer in Kent County, Michigan.
“Michigan now joins a growing list of states in which CWD has been discovered,” said wildlife biologist and QDMA CEO Brian Murphy. “However, among these, Michigan has the largest deer population, highest number of hunters and greatest impact on the U.S. hunting economy. Michigan’s estimated 1.5 million deer and nearly 800,000 hunters generate approximately $1 billion for the state’s economy annually and support many thousands of jobs. Therefore, Michigan must assume a leadership role at the national level in the battle against CWD.”
In a September 22 letter to Michigan’s Natural Resources Commission, Murphy, urged the Michigan legislature to make available necessary appropriations enabling the DNR to strengthen its education, research, surveillance and management program. Specific recommendations by QDMA included:
- Evaluating all captive deer facilities in Michigan and ranking them according to disease risk to wild deer, and to strengthen testing, record keeping and movement regulations as necessary.
- Evaluating the potential risk associated with taxidermy operations and captive deer facilities which manufacture products containing deer urine and/or feces.
- Spearheading a national CWD research effort to better understand the impact of CWD on wild deer herds and the future of hunting. The impact of this disease on the U.S. hunting economy could be catastrophic given that 70 percent of the $67 billion hunting industry is generated from white-tailed deer.
- Educating hunters and landowners on the benefits of food plots and native habitat improvement as alternatives to baiting and feeding.
A key component of the DNR’s surveillance and response plan is a ban on the baiting and feeding of deer in the entire Lower Peninsula, which QDMA supports. While the exact modes of CWD transmission in wild deer are not fully understood, direct contact with infected deer via saliva is one known mode of transmission. Thus, spread of the disease likely would be accelerated where deer are concentrated at bait or feed sites.
“We recognize the hardship this ban will have on some Michigan farmers and understand the importance of this practice to many Michigan hunters,” QDMA’s letter said. “However, we believe the DNR took the only biologically and socially responsible action to minimize the threat of CWD to wild deer and the future of deer hunting – not just in Michigan, but throughout North America.”
Founded in 1988, QDMA is a national nonprofit wildlife conservation organization with 48,000 members in all 50 states and several foreign countries. Membership in QDMA is open to anyone interested in better deer and better deer hunting, and committed to ethical hunting, sound deer management and the preservation of the deer-hunting heritage. To learn more about QDMA and why it is the future of deer hunting, call (800) 209-DEER [(800) 209-3337].
–QDMA … better deer, better deer hunting– |
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Quality Deer
Management Association
PO Box 160
Bogart, GA 30622
1-800-209-DEER (3337)
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