Province wants hunters to bring in deer heads to monitor deadly disease

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has asked hunters in certain parts of Ontario to bring in deer heads to help monitor for chronic wasting disease.

Each year the province's surveillance program for the disease targets different wildlife management units based on the chances animals like deer, moose and elk could come into contact with the disease.

"Those risk factors include proximity to neighbouring outbreaks, local deer and elk population density, the presence of game farms and things like prior sampling effort as well," said Larissa Nituch, a science operations supervisor with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

This year that includes large parts of southern Ontario and eastern Ontario. In northern Ontario, the area between North Bay and Mattawa is covered. 

Chronic wasting disease

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal disease that affects members of the deer family, including moose, elk and caribou.

Brian Stevens, a pathologist with the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, which helps the ministry test samples, said animals with the disease starve and waste away to nothing over time.

"There is concern that it could potentially jump into humans at some point if somebody were to eat infected tissues, similar to what we've seen with mad cow disease," Stevens said.

But he added that hasn't happened yet.

Chronic wasting disease has also never been found in Ontario, but infected animals have been discovered in every neighbouring U.S. state.

Years of monitoring

Nituch, with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, said the province has run its chronic wasting disease surveillance program for 20 years.

The ministry educates hunters in the targeted areas on how they can bring in samples and where to drop them off.

Nituch said the province has a response plan if it ever discovers an animal that has tested positive for the disease.

"If it were detected in Ontario, the ministry would create disease control zones where special rules would apply, such as requiring hunters to submit samples for disease testing, restricting movement of hunter-killed deer carcasses harvested within the response zone and potentially also banning feeding of deer within the zone," she said.

Hunters in an affected region could also get special authorization to dispatch animals that show symptoms of chronic wasting disease. 

Those symptoms include severe weight loss and erratic behaviour from the animal.

"But really when it comes to chronic wasting disease response, rapid response to the first detection is really critical for us to have a chance of eliminating CWD in the province," Nituch said.

Shawn Cayley, a spokesperson for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, said the organization encourages its members to participate in the surveillance program.